


t:;!; 







/ 




Book ^li«l. 



t^-^ 



By bequest of 

Samuel Hay Kauffmann 



nOCERT tCALL. 

roOKKELUn AND SXATIONtlt, 

495 Pennsjlvania Avenue, 
Wapiiixcton, D. C. 



'(' 



SOME LITERARY 
RECOLLECTIONS 



BY 

JAMES PAYN 

ii 
AUTHOR OP "a confidential AGENT " "fOR CASH ONLY*' 

"a beggar ON horseback" "by proxy" 



3 3 3 

3,5 



NEW YORK 
HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 

1884 



JAMES PAYN'S NOVELS. 



A BEGGAR ON HORSEBACK. 8vo, Paper, 35 cents. 

A CONFIDENTIAL AGENT. 4to, Paper, 15 cents. 

AT HER MERCY. 8vo, Paper, 30 cents. 

A WOMAN'S VENGEANCE. 8vo, Paper, 35 cents. 

A GRAPE FROM A THORN. 4to, Paper, 20 cents. 

BRED IN THE BONE. 8vo, Paper, 40 cents. 

BY PROXY. 8vo, Paper, 35 cents. 

HIGH SPIRITS. 4to, Paper, 15 cents. 

CARLYON'S YEAR. 8vo, Paper, 25 cents. 

CECIL'S TRYST. 8vo, Paper, 30 cents. 

FOR CASH ONLY. 4to, Paper, 20 cents. 

FOUND DEAD. 8vo, Paper, 25 cents. 

FROM EXILE. 4to, Paper, 15 cents. 

GWENDOLINE'S HARVEST. 8vo, Paper, 25 cents. 

HALVES. 8vo, Paper, 30 cents. 

KIT : A MEMORY. Illustrated. 4to, Paper, 20 cents. 

LESS BLACK THAN WE'RE PAINTED. 8vo, Paper, 35 cents. 

MURPHY'S MASTER. 8vo, Paper, 20 cents. 

ONE OF THE FAMILY. 8vo, Paper, 25 cents. 

THE BEST OF HUSBANDS. 8vo, Paper, 25 cents. 

THE CANON'S WARD. Illustrated. 4to, Paper, 25 cents. 

THICKER THAN WATER. 16mo, Cloth, $1 00 ; 4to, Paper, 20 cents. 

UNDER ONE ROOF. 4to, Paper, 15 cents. 

WALTER'S WORD. 8vo, Paper, 50 cents. 

WHAT HE COST HER. 8vo, Paper, 40 cents. 

WON— NOT WOOED. 8vo, Paper, 35 cents. 



Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 

Any of the above works sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part 
of the United States, on receipt of the price. 



Gift of 

26 MAR 1907 



TO 

LESLIE STEPHEN 

A CRITIC BLIND TO NO LITERARY MERIT SAVE HIS OWN 

Qli)CQc Becolkctions axe ^cbkatcb 

BY HIS OLD FRIEND 

JAMBS FAYJSr 



PEEFACE 



The substance of this book has already appeared 
under the same title in the Cornhill Magazine^ but 
the work has been recast, and now appears, with ad- 
ditions, in a somewhat different and, it is hoped, an 
improved form. 



CONTENTS 



OHAP. PAGE 

I. BOYHOOD. —ETON. -—WOOLWICH ACADEMY. — AT A PKI- 

VATE tutor's. — GETTING INTO PRINT 9 

II. COLLEGE LIFE. — W. G. CLARK. — DR. WHEWELL. — DE 

QUINCEY.— GEORGE BRIMLEY 39 

III. MISS MITFORD 61 

rV. MISS MARTINEAU. — WILLIAM ARNOLD 78 

V, THE BROTHERS CHA]MBERS. —ALEXANDER RUSSEL.— DEAN 
RAMSAY. — HILL BURTON. — ALEXANDER SMITH. — EDI- 
TORIAL EXPERIENCES 108 

VI. FIRST IVIEETING WITH DICKENS. — CALYERLY. — MY FIRST 

BOOK.— A LION-TAMER 137 

Vn. LONDON.— THE VALUE OF A TITLE. —PERSONAL NARRA- 
TIVES. — AN EXECUTION. — LEECH. — GILBERT 1 BECK- 
ETT. — JAMES WHITE. — READE. — TROLLOPE. — THACK- 
ERAY. — DICKENS 150 

Vin. PUBLISHERS AND AUTHORS.— ANONYMOUS PUBLICATIONS. 
— LITERARY GAINS. — TWO IMPOSTORS. — WHIST. — 
FAME 176 



SOME LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. 



Chapter I. 

BOYHOOD.— ETON. — WOOLWICH ACADEMY. — AT A PRIYATE TUTOR'S. 
— GETTma INTO PRINT. 

Above all writers, I envy and admire autobiographers. 
TJnliappily the feat of narrating one's own life in print 
can only be performed once. I should like to do it ever 
so many times, regarding myself in each case from a new 
stand-point ; but to me it is marvellous how it can be done 
at all. It doubtless arises from modesty and the total ab- 
sence of egotism, but for my part I don't remember more 
than half a dozen things that ever happened to me, and 
still less when they happened. There is Scriptural author- 
ity for not thinking very highly of the individuals who 
make a practice of observing "days and months and 
times and years," and so far at least I am a Christian 
man ; but to be able to put every event of one's life into 
the proper pigeon-hole is nevertheless a gift I envy. 

It is necessary, even for the autobiographers, however, 
to have kept a diary, which unhappily I never did, except 
for a week or two. I retain a fragment written in boy- 
hood ; genuine, but for any benefit I derive from it in the 
way of assistance to the memory, it might be the Shapira 
manuscript : 

Sunday, — Twice to church. Revs. Jones and Robin- 

1* 



10 Some Literary Recollections. 

son preached. A collection. Sixpence ? (I wonder why 
this note of interrogation.) 

Monday, — Wet. Improved my mind. Duck for sup- 
per. Tommy. (Who was Tommy ? Or was it an ejac- 
ulation ? The name of a place never mentioned to ears 
polite is sometimes associated with the word Tommy to 
express a catastrophe. Perhaps this was an abbrevi- 
ation.) 

Tuesday, — Called on Uncle B ; grumpy and unso- 
ciable. Accounts : lucifers and sundries, four pounds. 

I suppose I had always a distaste for detail ; at all 
events I seem to have very soon '^ dropped off gorged " 
from these personal memoranda, the perusal of which 
makes turbid the stream of life from its very source. I 
can't even remember who Uncle B was ; it was proba- 
bly a pseudonym for some person in authority, of business 
habits, whose individuality I have forgotten. In the 
next entry I find a Bishop mentioned. 

"Wednesday, — (No month, or even year, is ever stated ; 
the diary seems, like Shakspeare, to have been ^' for all 
time.") The Bishop called. 

Did he? And if so, what did he want? And who 
was he ? Our home was not so overrun with Bishops but 
that I should have remembered him had he been a real 
one. My conviction is that this also was a pseudonym. 
Out of such materials as these, though no doubt attrac- 
tive to the commentator, it is obviously impossible to con- 
struct an autobiography. However "keen to track sug- 
gestion to her inmost cell " might be the writer, he could 
not compress the thing within reasonable limits : if, as 
usual, there is to be prefixed a narrative of his ancestors 
during the civil wars (mine were all there), and an ample 
description of his great-grandmother — from whom he 



Kindness of Literwry Men. 11 

inherited his genius — the work would assume portentous 
dimensions. 

For these reasons an autobiography (which has been 
more than once requested from my humble pen) is out of 
the question. On the other hand, I have certain recol- 
lections. My mind, though a blank as to dates and even 
ordinary details, retains personal impressions vividly 
enough ; and it is possible, in the case of certain note- 
worthy persons with whom during a life of letters I have 
come in contact, that my reminiscences of them may have 
some interest. They extend, alas ! over many years, but 
I must premise that I have no "scandal about Queen 
Elizabeth," nor any one else, to communicate. This is, I 
feel, a drawback. The cry — 

"Proclaim the faults they would not show ! 
Break lock and seal ; betray the trust ; 
Keep nothing sacred — " 

goes forth stronger than ever. But unhappily my memo- 
ry is so defective that I recollect nothing against these 
good folk. There were matters amiss with them, doubt- 
less, for they were mortal ; but so far as I was concerned 
— a very young aspirant to fame — they gave me of their 
best. People talk of the vanity of authors ; of their self- 
ish egotism ; of their crying out " Whip behind !" when 
some poor fellow would hang on to the foot-board of the 
chariot in which they themselves ride forth so triumph- 
antly. But then some people lie. My experience of men 
and women of letters — which has been continuous, and 
extends over thirty years — is that for kindness of heart 
they have no equals. The profession of healing compre- 
hends, it is true, natures as generous and as gentle, but in 
that there is (technically speaking) a mixture. I have 



12 Some Literary Becollections. 

never known but one absolutely offensive man of letters, 
and even he was said to be pleasant when sober ; though, 
as I only met him some half a dozen times, and his habits 
were peculiar, I never had a fair chance of finding him in 
that condition. 

As a very young man I remember expressing this rose- 
colored view of the calling I had made up my mind to 
follow to Charles Dickens. He put on that comical look 
of his, every feature full of humorous significance, and 
turned to John Forster with, " It is plain our young friend 
has yet to know- — " And it so happened that I never 
did know — a circumstance which one can hardly regret. 
" But," as the old novelists used to say, " I am anticipat- 
ing." I suppose I must begin at the beginning, and give 
some account of my early predilection for story-telling 
and a literary life; though, for my part, I confess that, 
in perusing the early chapters of similar biographies, I 
have generally had a tendency to " skip;" the life of "lit- 
erary "boys being very much like that of other boys, with 
the disadvantage of being generally a miserable one. 
Boys with a turn for humor (unless of the practical joke 
description) fare worst of all, for your average boy hates 
wit even more than other kinds of intelligence, and licks 
its possessor with a wicket for being " facetious." 

It was my unhappy lot in youth to have a lively fancy, 
and to be much addicted to reading works of the imagi- 
nation; and though I hated lessons of all kinds as much 
as any of my contemporaries, they never forgave me this, 
and it made me a very unpopular boy. It was hard upon 
me, for I suppose in some sort I inherited these disadvan- 
tages. My father was of a genial nature, very well read, 
and with a turn for practical matters also which I never 
possessed. He had led a life of leisure for many years, 



My Father. 13 

but when it became necessary for him to exert himself 
for the sake of his family, he buckled to his work with 
amazing diligence and success. The necessity, I believe, 
arose from something like disinheritance. In the Town 
Hall at Maidenhead there hangs a picture of my paternal 
grandfather in a stiff wig, and with a very " disinheriting 
countenance." He was, at all events, very rich, and left 
his only son very far from rich. At his death my father 
bestirred himself, and by help of troops of friends (for he 
was very popular) obtained certain appointments, among 
them the clerkship to the Thames Commissioners, at that 
time an important post, with large emoluments attached 
to it. He could not, however, have been entirely absorbed 
in business, for at the same time he kept th@ Berkshire 
Harriers. I was so young when I lost him that I have 
scarcely any remembrance of my father ; but he must 
have been an attractive man. 

Miss Mitford writes to me of him: "Your father and 
I were friends when I was a girl of fifteen, and he a lad 
of your own age. I doubt if you know the manner of 
man he was, for the cares of the world had changed him 
much. In his brilliant youth he was much like a hero of 
the fine old English comedy (which you would do well 
to read) — the Archers and Mirabels of Farquhar and Con- 
greve; not a poet, but a true lover of poetry, with a fac- 
ulty of reciting verse, which is among the most graceful 
of all accomplishments." Almost my only recollection 
of my father is our reading " Macbeth " together : it al- 
ways fell to my part to rehearse the dagger scene with a 
paper-knife. This I greatly enjoyed, but not so another 
amusement which he expected me to appreciate. 

Twice a week I had to go hunting; this I abhorred. 
I had a nice little bay pony {Flash of Memory, " Light- 



14 Some Literary Recollections. 

foot"), and could ride well enough; but the proceedings 
were too protracted for my taste, and I wanted to be at 
home to finish the "Mysteries of Udolpho"by the fire. 
There was one thing I disliked even more than hare- 
hunting. This was fox-hunting. All my family, except 
myself, had sporting proclivities, and many a time through 
mistaken friendship have I been given " a mount " with 
"The Craven" or "The South Berks" which I would 
much rather have declined had I dared to do so. It was 
not only my own reputation, however, that was at stake, 
and I had to go through with it. I remember on one 
occasion getting some very bad language from a hunts- 
man for feeding some young hounds with cake in a wood. 
Sometimes the cold, and the waiting about, and the hav- 
ing nothing to read, grew absolutely intolerable ; there 
was then nothing for it but to dismount, put clover or 
something in my hair, smear my shoulder with mould, and 
ride home," having met with rather a nasty tumble." Of 
course it was very wrong ; but why will people compel 
poor boys to amuse themselves with things that give 
them no pleasure? It would have been better (and cheap- 
er) to have let me enjoy " Peregrine Pickle," " Captain 
Cook's Voyages," and the "Arabian Nights" all day, 
without the temptation of practising duplicity. My 
dearest mother — kindest of women, and at that time one 
of the most beautiful — was the only human being who 
understood me. I was a home bird in every feather, and 
her pet. 

Never shall I forget the wretchedness I endured at my 
first school from homesickness ; fox-hunting was noth- 
ing to it. When I used to wake in the mornings, and 
find myself, after happy dreams, in that land of exile, I 
thought myself the most miserable of human creatures. 



Miseries of School, 15 

I have the keenest recollection of it even now. Nothing 
that I ever suffered since — and I have suffered like other 
men, in many ways — has been comparable with the mis- 
ery of that time. I am well aware, of course, that I was 
not a fair specimen of the British school-boy ; but when 
I hear what he calls " old buffers " talk of the delights 
of school, and wish themselves back there, I think of the 
Cretans to whom the Apostle has given the palm for Ly- 
ing. The author of " Vice Versa " has of late, with as 
much truth as wit, exploded the whole delusion, and I 
thank him for it. I always learned my lessons, but with- 
out the least interest in them. I pitied and liked the 
ushers. The head-master I did not like ; he was a pom- 
pous, lethargic fellow. I remember on one occasion in- 
quiring of him how Castor and Pollux could have had 
immortality conferred upon them alternately. "You 
young fool," he replied, " how could they ever have had 
immortality conferred upon them at allf'^ I was but 
seven years old, or so, but I perceived from that moment 
— for how could he otherwise have missed the whole 
point of my difficulty ? — that it was possible for a man to 
be at once a scholar and an ass. That view has on more 
than one occasion been since corroborated. 

I was only popular at this school for one reason. It 
was unhappily discovered that I invented stories, and 
thenceforth — miserable Scheherazade ! — I was compelled 
to narrate romances out of my own head at night, till 
the falling asleep of my last lord and master permitted 
my weary little body and cudgelled brains to seek the 
same repose. I remained at this establishment, which 
was preparatory for Eton, for several years. It was so 
hateful to me (from no fault of its own, I am bound to 
say — school was antipathetic to me, that was all) that, 



16 Some Literary Recollections. 

when the holidays were over, I used to bury things, 
which would otherwise have been useful to me, in the 
garden, so that I might dig them up, when I returned 
home, undefiled from any experience of that classical 
seminary. 

One morning in the middle of the term there was a 
commotion in the house, to us smaller boys unintelligible, 
except that there was no morning school, which we ap- 
preciated as much as the biggest. A strange gentleman 
appeared at mid-day, and informed us that the head-mas- 
ter had been summoned abroad on urgent private affairs, 
and that our parents and guardians had been communi- 
cated with. I knew nothing of what it all meant, except 
that the term had been miraculously and providentially 
shortened, and that we were to go home. Even when I 
got to learn that the " urgent private affairs " meant 
bankruptcy and flight, I am afraid I evinced a shocking 
equanimity, and only thought of Lightfoot (for it was 
not the hunting season) and my mother. 

I suppose I was about eleven years old when I went 
to Eton. I was at a dame's house, and my tutor was 
Cookesley, a very eccentric but capital fellow. I was 
probably too young to properly appreciate even Eton ; 
the fagging, though not severe, was very offensive to me, 
and I resented the ridiculous airs and graces of the upper 
boys. I remember a fifth-form young gentleman (look- 
ing in his white tie like a miniature parson) inquiring of 
me in a drawling voice, " Lower Boy, what might your 
name be?" Though I never properly understood the 
niceties of the Greek aorist, I did understand the inflec- 
tions of my native tongue, and replied, " Well, it might 
be Beelzebub, but it isn't ;" upon which the duodecimo 
divine altered his tone very much, and even proceeded to 



First Fault. 17 

blows. It was only the proper punishment for " cheek," 
no doubt, but I thought it hard that a repartee should be 
so ill deserved. 

The fagging system, of which Thackeray has expressed 
such bitter scorn, was at its height at that time. Its de- 
fenders used to say that it prevented bullying ; but, as a 
matter of fact, where a fifth-form fellow was a brute it 

authorized it. One B , a boy at my dame's, was an 

especial victim of this tyranny ; one of the heads of the 
house had taken a particular antipathy to him, and was 
always sending him on long errands for mere cruelty. 
On one occasion he sent him to the end of the Long 
Walk (four miles away) to fetch a brick from the statue 
of George III. A moralist, or the gentleman in the Soci- 
ety journal who solves the Hard Questions, may decide 
what B ought to have done under such circum- 
stances. What he did do was to bring a brick from a 
much less distant s]3ot, and take his affidavit that it came 
from His Majesty's statue. Whatever virtues the fag- 
ging system may have inculcated, it certainly taught 
the Art of Lying. In spite, indeed, of the general con- 
tempt in which, upon the whole, I think that vice was 
held at Eton, there were many exceptions. Nobody got 
" swished," for example, if he could evade it by a tarra- 
diddle. " Switching " was and is a grossly indecent per- 
formance, which one illustration in the London News or 
Graphic would assuredly put an end to forever. Dr. 
Hawtrey, who was the head -master in my time, de- 
tested it. I can see him now in his cassock and bands, 
holding the birch (as Lamb says of his master) " like a 
lily " in his jewelled fingers, while some young gentle- 
man, in the presence of a troop of friends, was undoing 
his braces. " Please, ^\v^ first fault,''^ pleads the trembling 



18 Some Literary Beeollections. 

boy. (Everybody was let off the first time, unless for the 
most heinous offences.) " I think I remember your name 
before," says the pedagogue, in an awful voice. 

" My brother, sir," suggests the culprit. (It was a hap- 
py thing to have had, as I had, a brother before you — and 
not too good a boy — at Eton.) 

"I'll look at my book," was the stern rejoinder. And 
in the mean time — unless, alas ! he had had no brother be- 
fore him — the culprit fastened his braces ; he was at least 
reprieved. A humorous lad I will call Vivian, who had 
reached the rather unfloggable age of seventeen, and was 
upon the point of entering the army, was " swished," as he 
thought unjustly, the very week before his departure from 
the school. In those days a perquisite (and a very large 
perquisite) of the head-master's was a ten-pound note, given 
to him by every fifth-form boy on leaving. The etiquette 
was to call at the lodge and drop the note into a jar, or any- 
thing handy, where the doctor could find it after his dear 
pupil had gone away. It was something like the visit of 
a delicate-minded patient to a doctor of medicine. But 
Vivian only pretended to drop his ten-pound note into the 
jar, and reserved it for more agreeable purposes. He pic- 
tured to himself Avith great satisfaction the head-master's 
fruitless hunt after that bit of tissue-paper after he had 
got over the emotion of wishing him farewell. " I eanH 
flog him for flogging me unjustly," was his reflection, " but, 
dash it, I can fine him !" I have narrated this incident in 
" Less Black than We're Painted," but it is possible that 
some people (Philistines) may not have read the book. 

The crudest thing that happened to me at Eton was a 
vain attempt to contribute to the school magazine, called 
the Mon Bureau; considering my tender years, however, 
the disappointment was hardly to be wondered at. 



A "Cramming^^ School. 19 

When I had been at Eton a year or so, I received a 
^* nomination " to the Royal Military Academy, and was 
removed to a preparatory school at Woolwich, where I 
began my education afresh, and remained many years. 
In the days when I was young, the word " cramming," as 
applied to educational seminaries, was unknown, but the 
thing itself was in existence, though not on so large a 
scale as at present. When a boy received a nomination 
for the Military Academy, though the interval (as in my 
case) before he could be qualified for admission might be 
a long one, he was sent at once to one of the many schools 
at Woolwich, which professed to educate him for that 
purpose, and for nothing else. Some boys had very little 
time to spare, and their education (especially if they came 
from public-schools, where little was learned at that date 
save Greek and Latin) was necessarily carried on at high 
pressure. This saved time, and to put the whole estab- 
lishment on the same footing saved trouble. I had never 
known what work was till I went to Woolwich, and I had 
much rather have remained in ignorance. We had really 
hardly any play-time save on Wednesday and Saturday 
afternoons, and yet our position was one of ease and lei- 
sure compared with that of boys at certain rival establish- 
ments. At one of them, where the young gentlemen went 
especially late — at fifteen, or fifteen and a half (the age 
of admission to the Academy being sixteen) — they took 
their lessons Avith their meals, like dinner pills, and di- 
gested Euclid between the courses. It was taken for 
granted (and I am bound to say in most cases with good 
reason) that no one who came to Messrs. Hurry and Cram- 
mem's had ever learned anything before ; yet no explana- 
tion of anything was vouchsafed to us. It was under- 
stood that we couldn't swim, yet we were flung out of our 



20 Some Literary Recollections. 

depth into the river of learning. I have tried all systems 
of education with the poorest results imaginable, but this 
one was certainly the most hateful. For weeks I used to 
learn Euclid hy hearty without a soul to tell me what was 
the meaning of it, or why I was punished for my perform- 
ances at the board. Languages have been always as un- 
attainable to me as the science of music, and for many 
months I used to copy my German exercises from a fel- 
low-student, till a catastrophe happened. I was so igno- 
rant of the German characters — in which they were writ- 
ten — that I actually signed his name at the end of one 
of them instead of my own. Detection, of course, would 
have taken place much earlier had I been nearer my ex- 
amination, for the elder boys were looked after sharply 
enough. Heavens, what a life it was ! If a boy had died 
there, his existence would have ended like that of an " ha- 
bitual criminal," in penal servitude ; and his friends would 
doubtless have remarked that he had passed away in hap- 
py boyhood before he had known the ills of life. Indeed, 
I was often told by my elders that I was " like a young 
bear, with all my troubles to come." It is difficult to de- 
cide whether your sanctimonious fool or your philosophic 
fool deserves the palm for folly. 

What I especially resented at this place was that, in the 
whirl and hurry of " cram," there was no time for read- 
ing and writing ; for I was in my youth an omnivorous 
reader, and in spite of the many mills of education through 
which (as will be seen) I passed, contrived to learn some 
things really worth knowing : it is fair also to say (though 
I derived little other benefit from these seminaries) that 
their variety was very useful to me in the line of life I 
subsequently chose for myself, and offered me a wide 
study of life at an unusually early age. As for writing, I 



Failure of a Journal. 21 

was never tired of setting down " what I was pleased to call 
my thouglits " on paper, and generally in verse; and what 
is much more strange, I found a channel (in the eye of the 
law at least) of " publication " for them. A school-fellow 
of mine, Raymond, had a talent for drawing, and another 
scarcely less gifted genius, Jones, could write like print. 
These various talents might have remained comparatively 
unknown but for one Barker, who had a genuine turn for 
finance, and who hit upon a plan for combining them. 
We were like poor and struggling inventors, who in this 
young gentleman found their capitalist, and, thanks to 
him, were enabled to enlighten the world ; and the par- 
allel, as will be shown, went even farther. His idea was 
that we should start a weekly paper, full of stories and 
poems. I was to compose the contents, Jones was to 
write any number of fair copies, and Raymond was to 
illustrate them. 

" Of course," said Barker, " we shall not do it for noth- 
ing," which I thought (even then) a very just observation. 
The price of each copy was accordingly fixed at sixpence. 
It did not strike me that any one would refuse to give so 
small a sum for such admirable literature (not to mention 
the pictures, which indeed I did not think so highly of), 
but in practice we found there were difiiculties. Many 
boys were of so gross a nature that they preferred to 
borrow their literature, and spend their sixpences in the 
tuck-shop ; and though the first number (as often hap- 
pens) was to Barker a financial success, the second num- 
ber fell flat, and there were several surplus copies on our 
hands. Then came in our proprietor's genius for finance; 
he was the treasurer of the school, intrusted with the pay- 
ing out of a certain weekly pocket-money of two shillings, 
which, though despised at the beginning of the term when 



22 Some Literary BeGollections, 

our purses were full, became before the end of it of con- 
siderable importance. He resolved on a coup d'etat, and 
calmly deducted sixpence from everybody's two shillings, 
and gave them our paper instead. It was the first in- 
stance with which I became acquainted of " a forced cir- 
culation." 

Experinients of a similar kind have been tried by polit- 
ical financiers in many countries, but rarely without great 
opposition ; " the masses " never know what is good for 
them, and our school - fellows were no exception to the 
rule; they called our proprietor " a Jew," and, so to speak, 
"murmured against Moses." He was tall and strong, and 
fought at least half a dozen pitched battles for the main- 
tenance of his object. I think he persuaded himself, like 
Charles I., that he was really in the right, and set down 
their opposition to mere " impatience of taxation ;" but in 
the end they were "one too many for him," and indeed 
much more than one. He fell fighting, no doubt, in the 
sacred cause of literature, but also for his own sixpences, 
for we, the workers, never saw one penny of them. 

As I grew older, matters grew better with me at Messrs. 
Hurry and Crammem's establishment, or perhaps the im- 
provement only lay in the fact that I began to see the 
humorous side of them. I learned to do my work well, 
though I never liked it, nor have I ever liked any work 
except of my own choosing, though to that, Heaven knows, 
I have stuck closely enough. The Bohemian side of my 
character now began to develop itself, and that so strong- 
ly that, considering the great respectability of my family, 
I am almost inclined to think (like the Irish hypochon- 
driac) that I must have been changed at nurse. I used 
to delight in running up to town on short leave (from 
Saturday to Sunday night), and "in spite of all tempta- 



Youthful Bohemianism. 23 

tions " of invitations from my relations, preferred to do 
so on my own hook. It was more agreeable to me to be 
my own master than to sit in the lap of comfort. At that 
time ^' a sandwich and a glass of ale " — both, fortunately, 
of great size — used to be advertised for fourpence, and I 
have subsisted on that meal, rather than on the stalled ox, 
and conventionalism therewith. When money has been 
very "tight," I have even slept, I fear, in a day cab in a 
mews. At fifteen, in short, I knew more of the queer side 
of life than many people at fifty, but I became acquainted 
with it of my own free-will — which is a very different 
thing (and has very different effects) from becoming ac- 
quainted w^ith it on compulsion. 

I remember going to the Derby, and coming back 
(from want of funds) a great portion of the journey on 
an empty hearse, clinging not, indeed, to the plumes, for 
it had none, but to bare poles. Of course it was all very 
wrong, but I was never mischievous, nor can I recollect 
ever having taken the initiative in hurting any living 
creature. On the other hand, if I suffered a gratuitous 
wrong at the hands of any school-fellow, and it was not 
apologized for, I resented it exceedingly. What an innate 
villain, I reasoned, must he be to attack so harmless an 
individual ; and I generally contrived not only to be even 
with the young gentleman in question, but to strike a 
moderate balance in my own favor. 

I have followed this practice throughout life, and, 
though it is not strictly a Christian virtue, I venture to 
think it tends to the public advantage. If offensive peo- 
ple could be generally made to understand the theory of 
the turning of worms, they would be more careful of put- 
ting their foot down upon those apparently defenceless 
creatures. In the matter of reprisals, one is apt, of course, 



24 Some Literary Hecollections. 

to make mistakes ; but I think, even at that early age, I 
could recognize the difference between a light-hearted 
scamp and a cold-blooded scoundrel. That conciliation 
with the Base, and especially the Cruel, is useless, is a 
lesson that I learned as a small boy, and have never for- 
gotten ; I have generally managed, upon principle, to pay 
them out. 

As the time grew near for the entrance examination to 
Woolwich, Mr. Hurry began, for the first time, to take 
some interest in me, who had hitherto been left to the 
ushers. " Your father " (he had been deceased for many 
years) " has been writing," he told me, " very seriously 
indeed about your Euclid." 

Mr. Hurry knew all the tricks of his trade. He was 
confident of my passing the ordinary examination, but 
was very doubtful of my being able to get through the 
medical branch of it, because I was so very short-sighted. 
He gave me, however, the best advice. " They will tell 
you to look out of the window and describe the colors of 
the horses on the common. Mind you say ' bay ' very 
rapidly, for all horses are either ^gray' or 'bay.'" If 
not strictly well-principled, Mr. Hurry was very good fun, 
and I am indebted to him (though I was not aware of it 
at the time) for much material for my first work, " The 
Foster Brothers." 

I thought myself very fortunate (though, as it hap- 
pened, it eventually came to nothing) when I took the 
third place at the entrance examination into the Military 
Academy. The humors of that establishment at that 
date I shall not attempt to describe ; they were fitted for 
the pen of a Smollett, but scarcely adapted for a modern 
audience. I have introduced some of them — after a cer- 
tain necessary refining process — into "What He Cost 



A Speculation in Sheep. 25 

Her," and the recollection of them has been doubtless of 
advantage to me, from a literary point of view. Nihil 
humaniini a me alienum puto is a motto that belongs to 
the novelist even more than to the poet ; and, indeed, life 
at the Military Academy had very little to do with poetry. 
The government of the place was a despotism, tempered, 
not by epigrams, but by escapades. Its subjects were 
insubordinate, and demanded frequent fusillades — expul- 
sions. Our age, from fifteen to eighteen, was no doubt 
a difficult one to legislate for ; we were neither boys nor 
men, and though subject to military discipline, like sol- 
diers, we were sometimes treated quite as small boys. On 
one occasion, in order to check extravagance, it was or- 
dained that we should only have five pounds apiece of 
pocket-money on rejoining after a vacation. As one of 
us notoriously kept a pack of beagles, this was not an 
edict likely to have, at all events, a universal application. 

The authorities feared ridicule quite as much as the 
cadets themselves did. I remember the governor read- 
ing prayers to us in the dining -hall one wet Sunday. 
The chapter for the day happened to be the autobiography 
of St. Paul, in which the words " I speak as a fool " occur 
more than once, and those the reader left out, for fear 
of exclamations of agreement. It was here that "Lord 
Bloomfield " and " The Earl of Moira " (signs of public- 
houses on Shooter's Hill) were given by N as respect- 
able references, and it was here (or, at least, while he was 
a cadet) that he carried out that famous operation in 
sheep. A story should never be told twice in print, at 
all events by the same man ; but in the interest of those 
who have not read it, I must be excused for repeating 
this one. 

N and M , cadets, t^U and hairy, and looking 

2 



26 Some Literary Becollections. 

much older than they were, found themselves one vaca- 
tion with only five shillings between them, and in need of 
capital. They were accustomed to agricultural pursuits, 

and N plumed himself on his judgment of sheep. 

" Let us go," he said, " to the sheep fair at E and buy 

a flock and sell them at a profit." They attired them- 
selves in appropriate raiment and went to the fair ; after 
a general inspection of the pens they bought a hundred 
sheep at thirty-nine shillings a head — that is to say, they 

agreed to buy them. M went with one of the drovers 

to a public-house, ostensibly to hand him over the money, 
but really to gain time and to spend his five shillings in 
treating him, while N remained with the other to dis- 
pose of his bargain at a profit if he could. For a whole 
hour he did no business, but in the end he sold the flock 
at forty shillings a head, realizing five pounds by the 
transaction. We talk of a bad quarter of an hour, but 

here were four of them for poor N" . " Suppose you 

had not sold them," I said, " would you not have got into 
a frightful row?" ''Very likely," he said. "All the 
time I was thinking less of the buyers than of Botany 
Bay." For at that time we had transportation. 

I had some rather amusing experiences of my own in 
those Woolwich days, though I am afraid they did not 
redound to my credit. There was a story told (but then 
people will say anything) of my preaching on a tub in 
Hungerford Market, in order to raise the necessary fund 
(eightpence) for the return of self and friend to Wool- 
wich by river steamer. 

I will confess to one adventure which I suspect would 
nowadays be pronounced of a Bohemian character. I 
was returning with a fellow-cadet one evening in a han- 
som cab, when it occurred to us (for cards we had always 



I Leave Woolwich, 27 

with us) to beguile the journey with a game of cribbage. 
As it was quite dusk, we purchased an enormous and high- 
ly decorated candle, such as are used for ecclesiastical 
celebrations, and stuck it up between us. Having al- 
ways a very tender conscience, this gave me an idea 
that we were committing a kind of sacrilege, but there 
was no help for it. I remember, however, being a good 
deal startled when an awful voice, as it seemed from the 
skies, suddenly thundered down upon us, " You have for- 
got his heels." It was the cabman, who, interested in the 
game, which he had been watching through the little door 
in the roof, thus reminded us of our inadvertence. 

My military career, though, as will be admitted, not 
destitute of incident, was brief ; it was cut short, however, 
not in the usual manner, by expulsion, but by ill-health ; 
and at seventeen I was sent to a private tutor's in prepa- 
ration for the University. 

My school life, as may be gathered, had not been desti- 
tute of fun, but upon the whole I detested it. It was now 
for the first time that I became acquainted with happi- 
ness. To me it is curious that school life should have 
those attractions which it certainly possesses for most 
boys, independent of the imaginary ones with which the 
glamour of " the Past " invests it. I suppose the delight 
they take in sports of all kinds makes up for the discom- 
forts they endure, while, having no particular literary 
bent, their dry mechanical studies are not more disagree- 
able to them than any other kind of reading would be. 
With the exception of what Mrs. Caudle calls " the fine 
old athletic game of cribbage," I, unfortunately, cared 
nothing for sports ; and while I loved poetry and fiction, 
the lessons that were imposed upon me were absolutely 
hateful. To find m^^self comparatively my own master, 



28 Some Literary Recollections, 

with leisure for my private pursuits, was, therefore, like 
escaping from slavery. 

My new tutor was one of the handsomest and most 
agreeable men I have ever known, of the most polished 
manners and charming social gifts of all kinds, and his 
family were as pleasant as himself. He lived in a large 
house, once the residence of a great lord, in Devonshire, 
commanding the most splendid views. After my previ- 
ous experience of life, I seemed to myself (not unreasona- 
bly, I thought, if the theory of compensation was to be 
accej)ted) to have gone to heaven. As a young man my 
new preceptor had been the pet of the aristocracy ; had 
been private tutor to more than one duke, and had educa- 
ted earls and viscounts without number. Many of them 
had expressed an extravagant regard forhim, but their ef- 
forts to benefit him when he came to need their assistance 
were certainly not extravagant. He was comparatively a 
poor man when I first became acquainted with him, and 
had the pride which generally accompanies unaccustomed 
poverty. He would have died rather than have asked 
his noble friends for anything, and they took great care, 
as it seemed to me, never to inquire into his circum- 
stances. One of them, a very great magnate indeed, wrote 
to request his dear old tutor to come up to Scotland and 
marry him. He did so, and not only received no guerdon 
from his gushing Grace, but was left to pay his own 
journey there and back. He never uttered a word of 
complaint, though I think he felt it ; but it gave me a les- 
son with regard to the selfish callousness of the rich and 
powerful (with their motto of noblesse oblige, too !), which 
has never needed, though it has amply received, the cor- 
roboration of experience. 

The preparation for Cambridge was a mere bagatelle, 



Humorous Incidents. 29 

after what I had been accustomed to in the way of les- 
sons ; and though I never cared for University studies, I 
almost took a pleasure in them for the teacher's sake. I 
can see myself now doing Euclid with him in his sanctum, 
without book ; he taught me to carry the figures, even of 
the sixth book (which are much belettered), in my head, 
and after a little practice I found no difficulty in it, and 
even some self-satisfaction. 

This, too, was the first and only time in my life that I 
have derived any pleasure from what seems to please so 
many people — out-door exercise. 

I had some companions of my own age who taught me 
the use of the leaping-pole, in which I became quite a re- 
markable proficient. We scoured the country, each with 
a fourteen-foot pole in our hands, and rarely found brook 
or lane too broad for us. Many a time, like Commodore 
Trunnion, have I astonished a wagoner by flying from 
steep bank to bank, over the heads of himself and his 
horses. I could now, quite as easily, like the cow in the 
nursery rhyme, fly over the moon. 

I have never seen it remarked, with relation to the ef- 
fect of humor, that, notwithstanding the stupidity of all 
so-called practical jokes, a material drollery — something 
incongruous that actually happens — makes a more vivid 
and lasting impression upon the human mind than any- 
thing spoken. It has been my good-fortune to have been 
familiar with more than one great humorist, and to have 
mixed generally with many utterers of good things. I 
remember some with great pleasure, but the recollection 
of them does not tickle me with the same irrepressible 
mirth as certain humorous incidents, which I can never 
recall, even in the silent watches of the night, without 
laughter. They owe something, of course, to the eircum- 



30 Some Literary Recollections. 

stances under which they took place, and therefore always 
lose in the telling ; but to those who have experienced 
and can appreciate them they are solid lumps of delight, 
which no time can liquefy. One of these was vouchsafed 
to me while at my Devonshire tutor's. I have often told 
it, but I do not remember having ever put it into print. 

On one occasion we had some private theatricals, for 
which a great hall in the centre of the house, approached 
by a long passage from the front -door, afforded great 
facilities. One of the plays was a dress piece, exhibiting 
the Court of Queen Elizabeth. It was my frivolous dis- 
position, perhaps, that caused me to be selected as the 
Court jester. A dear friend of mine (since dead, alas ! 
like most of them) played Sir Walter Raleigh, and I well 
remember he took advantage of my being in a simple net- 
work garment to prick my unprotected limbs with the 
point of his rapier. 

It was a snowy winter's night, and the hall was crowd- 
ed with a very large audience, whose servants, including 
those of the house, were standing on the great staircase 
and in the galleries ; and Sir Walter and I were in the 
long passage aforesaid, waiting to " come on," when there 
came a ring at the front-door. There was no one to an- 
swer it, as we knew, except ourselves. But who, at that 
time of night, two hours after the performance had begun, 
could it possibly be? "By Jove!" whispered I, already 
trembling with the sense of the absurdity of what must 
needs come to pass, "it's the new pupil." 

My tutor, I knew, was expecting one (from Wales) 
about that date, but in the hurry and bustle of the theat- 
ricals we had clean forgotten all about him. The bell 
rang again with increased violence. We opened the door, 
and there stood a little man, with a Bradshaw and a rail- 



Miss O'Neill. 31 

way rug, just descended from a snow-covered fly. His 
gaze wandered from the knight in his doublet and hose 
to the fool in scarlet, and back again, in speechless aston- 
ishment. He had evidently a mind to turn and flee, but 
Sir Walter, with gentle violence, constrained him to enter. 
We led him along the passage, opened the door of the 
great hall, and pushed him on to the stage. The applause 
was deafening. The appearance of a modern railway 
traveller, with rug and guide, among the Court of Eliza- 
beth, was thought to be part of an exquisite burlesque. 
The Queen wept tears of laughter, the courtiers roared, 
not from complaisance, but necessity ; the whole house 
" rose " at the unexpected visitor, who faced it with his 
mouth open. It was more than a minute before my tutor 
could understand what had happened. He came forward, 
full of the politest apologies, marred by fits of uncontroll- 
able mirth. 

'^ My dear Mr. D , I cannot express my sorrow " 

(which was very true). ''What must you have thought 
of your reception and of my house ?" 

The Welshman was plucky enough, and, not unnatural- 
ly, in a frightful rage. "I thought it was a lunatic asy- 
lum, sir," he answered, bitterly. 

Then we gave him three cheers, and one cheer more. 
The hero of that evening fell at Balaklava a few years 
afterwards ; my tutor and three-fourths of that joyous 
company have long been dead ; but when I think of that 
inimitable scene, the humor of it sweeps wave-like over 
all, and for one fleeting minute drowns regret. 

The mention of theatricals reminds me that under my 
tutor's roof I had the pleasure of meeting the once fa- 
mous Miss O'Neill. She stayed a fortnight in the house 
with her husband, Sir William Becher. Those of ripe 



32 Some Literary Recollections. 

age who saw her act used to compare her, and not unfa- 
vorably, with Mrs. Siddons. This was the more remarka- 
ble since she left the stage on her marriage at a very ear- 
ly age. At the date of which I speak she was between 
fifty and sixty years of age— a tall, commanding-looking 
w^oman, with a certain majesty in her mien and move- 
ments. She talked of '' the Garden " and " the Lane," 
and was very fond of recitation. I remember her giving 
us '' Hohenlinden," one afternoon in the hall, in very fine 
style. 

It was when I was a pupil in Devonshire that the mead- 
ows of manuscript which I had written began to produce 
their first scanty crop of print. 

A curious chapter might be written concerning the 
channels through which authors have first addressed the 
public. From the nature of the case they have been 
mostly of a humble kind. One rarely writes for the 
Times or the Edinhurgh at seventeen ; or, rather, though 
we may w^rite/br them (for young gentlemen of the pen 
are audacious enough), one's lucubrations are first "ac- 
cepted" in much more modest regions. Thackeray told 
me that the first money he had ever received in literature 
(under what circumstances he did not say, but they must 
have been droll ones) was from Mr. G. W. M. Reynolds. 
For my own part, I may, so far, have been said to have 
been born with a silver spoon in my mouth, for my liter- 
ary godfather was no less a person than Leigh Hunt. In 
the flesh, I regret to say, I never knew him ; but as a boy 
I had an admiration for him that was akin to love. I sup- 
pose no writer has ever preached the love of books so 
eloquently as he has done, or gained more disciples. He 
had a most kind and gracious nature, which was cultiva- 
ted to extremity. Culture is much more common nowa- 



Leigh Hunt. 33 

(lays than it was in his time, but unless the nature of the 
soil is gracious, very little comes of such '' top-dressing." 
Leigh Hunt combined with a " fine brain " the tender- 
est of human hearts. His ignorance of business matters 
and his poverty made him to natures of the baser sort an 
object of ridicule. Carlyle used to keep three sovereigns 
in a little packet on his mantel - piece, which he called 
*' Leigh Hunt's sovereigns," because he occasionally lent 
them to him, and was wont to narrate the circumstance to 
all whom it did not concern. Hunt would have lent him 
three thousand sovereigns, had he possessed them, and 
never disclosed the circumstance. 

There was nothing in his literary life which Dickens 
regretted so much as the unintentional wrong he did 
Leigh Hunt in his portrait of Harold Skimpole. It was 
true that he drew one side of it from his friend, but the 
other side — the selfishness and the baseness — had naught 
to do with him. They were indeed so utterly opposed to 
his character, that it perhaps seemed to Dickens that no 
one could associate them with the original of the picture. 
Nothing is more common than for a novelist to paint in 
this way, and for the very purpose of the concealment of 
identity ; but in this case the likeness was, in some points, 
too striking to escape recognition, and the others were 
taken for granted, whereat both painter and sitter were 
cruelly pained. 

The first composition of my own which I had the bliss 
to see in print was a little poem called " The Poet's 
Death" — a • queer subject enough to begin a poetical 
career with — published in Leigh Hunts Journal ; one of 
the many periodicals which owed their being to his san- 
guine temperament and the optimism of a publisher. It 
had a short life, and I am afraid not a merry one. Soon 

2* 



34 Some Litera/ry Recollections. 

after, I wrote a series of " Ballads from English History " 
in JBentley^s Miscellany — of which I think, at that time, 
Harrison Ains worth was the proprietor and editor. When 
I ventured, after half a dozen of them or so had made 
their appearance, to hint at payment, I received a note 
from Mr. Ainsworth explaining that " the circumstances 
of the magazine were such that it could afford no ^96cw^^- 
ary remuneration to its contributors." The word " pecu- 
niary " was italicized, as though I had received some remu- 
neration of another kind. If I had had to trust to my 
muse for subsistence (though, upon my word, I still think 
I wrote very pretty poems) I should have died early, un- 
less some Dr. Tanner had communicated to me his secret 
of living without food. One of the few poems I ever got 
paid for w^as a humorous one, which I had the pleasure 
to see the other day quoted in an American collection of 
" anonymous and dead authors." It was written upon a 
great friend of my boyhood, a pointer called '' Jock." 

" A roUicksome, frolicsome, rare old cock 
As ever did nothing was our dog Jock ; 
A gleesome, fleasome, affectionate beast, 
As slow at a fight, as swift at a feast ; 
A wit among dogs, when his life 'gan to fail, 
One couldn't but see the old wag in his tail, 
When his years grew long and his eyes grew dim, 
And his course of bark could not strengthen him. 
Xever more now shall our knees be press'd 
By his dear old chops in their slobbery rest, 
Nor our mirth be stirr'd at his solemn looks, 
As wise and as dull as divinity books. 
Our old friend's dead, but we all well know 
He's gone to the kennels where the good dogs go, 
Where the cooks be not, but the beef-bones be, 
And his old head never need turn for a flea." 



My First Honorarium, 35 

The proprietor of the object of this eulogy was so 
pleased with it that he placed it over the dog's tomb- 
stone, and much to his annoyance found he had a great 
deal more to pay the stone-cutter than I had received for 
the original manuscript. In short, though at that time 
of my life and long afterwards I much preferred verse to 
prose, it soon became manifest to me that poetry would, 
in my case, be its own reward. 

My first prose article found acceptance in Household 
Words, It was the forerunner of scores and scores con- 
tributed to the same periodical, but no other gave me a 
tithe of the pleasure this one did. A mother's pride in 
seeing her first-born in long clothes is no doubt consid- 
erable, but it is nothing to an author's delight upon the 
appearance of his first article in print. In this case the 
well-known line, '' Half is his, and half is thine," does not 
apply; the little creature is his very own, and small as it 
is, plays the part of master of the ceremonies in introduc- 
ing him to the world at large. From that moment he is 
no longer a private person, but an author. I don't know 
how many attempts I had made to obtain that status be- 
fore I succeeded ; the perseverance of Bruce's spider, as 
compared with mine, was mere impatience. If I could 
have foreseen how long it would be before I was fated to 
be successful again, my happiness would have been not a 
little dashed ; but as it was, I was in the seventh heaven. 
Up to this day, when I look back upon the letter I re- 
ceived, announcing the acceptance of "Gentleman Cadet" 
(a short sketch of life at the Academy), it awakens emo- 
tions. The writer was W. H. Wills, who assisted Dick- 
ens in his editorship, a man of kindly nature and (of this 
I was especially convinced just then) of excellent judg- 
ment. He was devoted to his chief, conscientious to his 



36 Some Literary Recollections. 

contributors, and an excellent fellow, as I had afterwards 
good reason to know ; but it was a disappointment to me 
that I had not heard from '' the Master " himself. Even 
that, however, I almost forgot when I received the hono- 
rarium (three guineas) for my little paper. It seemed to 
me that fame and fortune had both opened wide their 
gates to me at once. A lady novelist has written raptur- 
ously of the feelings that were aroused within her by the 
first kiss from her beloved object, though he was but a 
Detrimental. I felt like her, with the additional satis- 
faction of believing myself to have made an excellent 
match. 

The first question that occurred to me was, What 
should I do with the money ? It was a sum too small to 
invest, and too sacred to be frittered away: in the end I 
bought a pig with it. This requires a note of explana- 
tion. In Devonshire there are no pigs worthy of the 
name, only a kind of dog with a pigskin on it — a circum- 
stance which much distressed my tutor, who was a judge 
of pigs, and admired them exceedingly. Accordingly, 
when I returned after my next vacation, I brought him a 
genuine specimen of the animal from Berkshire. Though 
country born and country bred, I was always extremely 
ignorant of country matters. A fine landscape delighted 
me, yet I scarcely knew an ash from an elm; and though 
I liked animals, I did so as a child likes them, without 
knowledge of their habits. To this day one of my objec- 
tions to visiting at country houses is that so many of their 
owners compel one to feel an interest in their horses and 
cattle. ''Perhaps you would like to see the stables," etc. 
All that I have always hated, and of course I knew noth- 
ing about pigs. 

The animal in question was chosen for me by an expert, 



How I Spent It 37 

and he (the animal) accompanied me, in a large hamper, 
by train to Devonshire. It was a very hot day in Au- 
gust, and it struck me, as I got out at Bristol for some 
liquid refreshment, that the poor pig must be thirsty too. 
I am now aware that it was an error of judgment, but it 
arose from a natural tenderness of heart. We had ten 
minutes to wait, but it was with some difficulty that I 
obtained the services of a porter for this (probably 
unique) performance. The station was in a state of great 
confusion ; two excursion trains had come in, and there 
was a cattle-market below-stairs, he told me. However, 
we got my hamper and took it down in the lift to an 
unoccupied apartment ; my four-footed friend never ut- 
tered a sound during this process — he was either dazed 
with unwonted travel, or preparing himself for some com- 
ing struggle ; but I regarded him with the tenderest 
sympathy, believing him to be half dead with heat and 
drought. The porter procured a pan of water, and then 
proceeded to open the hamper. What took place next I 
cannot describe, for it happened in a mere flash of time ; 
there was a cry of panic, rage, and fear — a squeal is no 
word for it — a broken pan, a prostrate porter, and a mad 
pig gone ! If the door had been closed he would without 
doubt have bitten us both, but fortunately the man had 
left it open. The next moment the creature was in the 
market — the " open market," as it is called, but altogether 
out of my reach. He had joined a great band of pigs 
(though the owner denied it), and identification was out 
of the question. Such was the fate of the pecuniary pro- 
ceeds of my first article. 

In other respects, however, it was more fortunate ; it 
made some little stir in the periodical world, and even in 
one region which may be fairly said to be remote from it. 



38 Some Literary Recollections. 

It came under the notice of the governor of the Wool- 
wich Academy, who wrote to Dickens upon the subject 
with some acerbity. When the faults of any educational 
establishment are indicated, I have always noticed that 
he who points them out is the subject of one of two kinds 
of attack. 1. If he has been there in person he ought to 
be ashamed of himself for suggesting that it falls short 
of perfection ; he is a bird that fouls its own nest. 2. If 
by some slight inaccuracy of detail he betrays that he has 
received his information at second hand, then he knows 
nothing about it. 

"If your correspondent had been a cadet himself," 
wrote the general, '^I should not have addressed you, but 
it is clear to me that he is an outsider." A courteous 
reply informed him that the writer of the article had been 
a cadet, on which the governor — evidently still in doubt 
— demanded his name. This was a course which, unless 
he had reason to believe he had been wilfully deceived, 
Charles Dickens was the last man to adopt, with respect 
to any contributorj without permission, and he wrote to 
me to ask it. It was the first of many letters that I have 
received from that kind and gracious hand, but none have 
given me so exquisite a pleasure. I was fortunately able 
to reply to his communication in a manner that not only 
satisfied himself but the irascible general ; and thus be- 
gan an acquaintance which presently ripened into friend- 
ship, none the less sincere though the obligations in con- 
nection with it were, from first to last, all on one side. 



Distinguished Men, 39 



Chapter II. 

COLLEGE LIFE.— W. G. CLAKK.— DR. WHEWELL.— DE QUTNCEY.— 

GEORGE BROILEY. 

It is generally understood — I suppose from their each 
forming a part of our educational career — that the dif- 
ference between school life and college life is (literally) 
one only of degree. This is by no means the case ; it is 
greater even than the dii^similarity so much insisted upon 
between life at college and that in the world beyond it. 
The undergraduate, though he may be far indeed from 
having reached years of discretion, is his own master, and 
has his time almost wholly — save the necessity of keeping 
certain lectures and chapels — at his own disposal. Even 
the chapels, I believe, may now be omitted if the young 
gentleman is "advanced" enough in his ideas to enter- 
tain a conscientious scepticism ; but even in my time we 
were free enough, and the relief from the discipline and 
the restraints of school was to me like a manumission 
from slavery. One's whole surroundings wear quite an- 
other aspect, and even the same young men whom one 
has known as boys often present quite a different nature, 
which is, in fact, their true one. This is not so much the 
case, indeed, with '^reading men," who, keeping the same 
end in view which they had at first, preserve to a great 
extent the same characteristics ; but for the rest of us, 
though for the first term the old associations may linger 
and exercise some influence, we soon drift away from the 



40 Some Literary Becollections. 

loose bond which bound us to our school companions, 
and, keeping a few of them for future intimacy, choose 
our friends from the university world for ourselves by a 
natural selection derived from common pursuits and plea- 
sures. I am afraid that pleasure had a good deal to do 
with my selection, and I don't regret it, for some of those 
friends are as dear to me as ever. It is a mistake to 
suppose that all pleasure is necessarily selfish, or that the 
intimacies arising from it vanish like ^'friendships made 
in wine." 

At this time also, thanks to my literary proclivities, I 
made acquaintance Avith persons of high university stand- 
ing in my college (Trinity) who would otherwise have 
been out of the reach of an undergraduate who culti- 
vated neither the classics nor the mathematics. My per- 
formances in the lecture - room or in the examinations 
would certainly not have recommended me to their no- 
tice — the road of academical distinction which usually 
leads to the favor of the dons was closed against me — 
but the publication of a little volume of poems (" Stories 
from Boccaccio ") introduced me to such of them as in 
my eyes were most worth knowing, as it were, by a short 
cut. 

These gentlemen, of course, were not merely scholars, 
but men of wide human sympathies, to whom (to put an 
old joke into a new bottle) the particle de was not so ab- 
sorbing as to shut out all interest in the particle men. 
Among them I especially mention W. G. Clark, one of 
the most accomplished and deservedly popular of men. 
As Tutor of Trinity, and afterwards as Public Orator, he 
had a wide university reputation ; as the author .of '' Gaz- 
pacho," and editor of the Cambridge Shakespeare, he was 
known to the world without ; but only those who had 



W. G. Clarh. 41 

the privilege of his friendship could understand that 
magic of manner and charm of conversation which caused 
the late Lord Clarendon to waive his own acknowledged 
claim to be " the best of all good company" in his favor. 
"I think W. G. Clark," he said, 'Hhe most agreeable fel- 
low " — and he did not mean fellow of a college only — " I 
have ever met." Clark was a conversationalist of the 
highest order, and the rarest. Wits are still to be met 
with now and then ; good raconteurs are not uncommon 
— some of whom even bring in their anecdotes in a natu- 
ral manner, and not by the head and shoulders — but as a 
rule they are too much given to monologue. 

Lever was a man of this kind — bright, genial, cheery, 
and full of good stories ; he pleased one like an embodi- 
ment of his own creations, but he did not — in my judg- 
ment at least — understand conversation. I know men, 
also, who may be said to be too good talkers. Their 
words are so well chosen, and their periods so rounded, 
that to listen to them is like listening to somebody read- 
ing aloud ; they hold you with their mellifluous utter- 
ances so long that before they reach the end of their 
league-long sentence (the finale of which one can never- 
theless clearly foresee) you have forgotten what you 
wished to reply to it. Clark had none of these faults ; 
he had not only the means of pleasing, far beyond what 
are possessed by most good talkers, but, what is often 
wanting in them, the desire to please. Nor do I remem- 
ber, among the many bright and pungent sayings that fell 
from his lips, a single one that had a sting in its tail. 

A characteristic retort of his just occurs to me, which, 
though of a personal nature, can assuredly wound nobody 
by repetition. One of the Trinity dons, though known 
to the world of learning as the greatest of living Latin 



42 Some Literary Recollections. 

scholars, was, from his gentleness and good-nature, disre- 
spectfully dubbed by his intimates and associates " the 
Ox." One night, after dining at the Master's '^ Lodge," 
he happened to drop into Clark's room, and began to 
speak of the occurrences of the evening. There had 
been some discussion, he said, about Plato, and it was 
clear to him, from the Master's observations, that he had 
been indebted for certain ideas upon the subject to Mr. 
Llewellyn Davies's recent translation of that author. 
"Ah," said Clark, Avith that quiet smile which always 
fell short of the merits of the sally it heralded, " the Ox 
knoweth his Master's Crib." 

Fortune has thrown me among a good many bright 
talkers during my life, but I don't think I ever heard a 
wittier thing, even from W. G. Clark himself. He was 
the Amphitryon of Trinity, and at his table I first learned 
what that which Dr. Johnson used to call '' good talk " 
was like. 

To the Master (Whewell) I was also personally intro- 
duced through the medium of my turn for verse-making ; 
the incident, however, was not altogether to my credit, 
and reminds one of the ill-considered boast of the gentle- 
man to whom the king had spoken, but, as it turned out, 
in no very complimentary way. At college, of course, 

are retained 

" All usages thoroughly worn out, 

The souls of them fumed forth, the heart of them torn out," 

and among others that of commemorating the Restora- 
tion of his Most Christian Majesty Charles IL Finding 
on the hall "screen," one 29th of May, an account of the 
celebration for the day in Latin, I ventured to write with 
my pencil some extemporaneous lines on the subject im- 
mediately after the word gratid : 



An Ejpigram, 43 

**ror the sake of him who sold 
Dunkirk to the French, 
And gave away the gold 
To a naughty little wench." 

While I was still contemplating (and doubtless with some 
youthful vanity) this inspiration of my muse, the screen 
became darkened by an enormous shadow, and to my ex- 
treme horror I perceived the Master reading over my 
shoulder this revolutionary effusion. His grim face never 
relaxed, though I had afterwards reason to believe he was 
tickled. '^That screen, young gentleman," he observed, 
in awful tones, "is not intended for the publication of 
your political sentiments." He at once gave orders for 
the obnoxious epigram to be removed, and for my part I 
was thankful that they were not for my immediate exe- 
cution. 

The great Doctor was not, in undergraduate eyes — or, 
at all events, in the eyes of those like myself who were 
about "only not to disgrace themselves by taking an or- 
dinary degree " — an agreeable person. His manners were 
rough, and his temper, when he troubled himself to keep 
it at all, of the shortest.* I remember his looking out of 
a window of " the Lodge " to address the head of the police 
on some occasion when the great square was en fete for 
some Royal visit, and noting how very short it was. The 
inspector was at some distance off, and the fall of the 
fountain drowned the Master's voice, so that he did not 
hear it. 

* It is fair to state that my view of Dr. Whewell's character was merely 
an undergraduate one. Friends of my own time who had entertained the 
same view took a very different and much more favorable one of him on 
later acquaintance. I am assured by them that he had a large and gener- 
ous disposition, and that the rough husk contamed a tender kernel. 



44 Some Literary Recollections, 

"Mr. Inspector Tanner!" This was delivered very 
courteously, just as Mr. Chucks, the boatswain, used to 
begin all his allocutions. 

" Inspector Tanner !" Here the prefix was significantly 
omitted, and the voice grew perceptibly harsher; still no 
answer. 

"Tanner!" The faintest trace of civility was now 
dropped; Tanner might have been the name of a bull-puj) 
who would not come to heel. 

''You there P"^ was the final appeal, delivered in the 
tone of a screech-owl. Every note of the brief gamut had 
been run through in about ten seconds. 

Whewell had quite a sublime manner, supplemented by 
a Northern burr of expressing contempt, but it was often 
misapplied. His criticism upon Tennyson's "Korthern 
Farmer " was an example of it : 

" It seems to me that the poet has wasted a great deal 
of dialectic ingenuity in describing a very wuthless pus- 
sonage!''* 

Most people in his eyes were icuthless who were not 
acquainted with the Inductive Sciences. His presence 
was majestic ; he made an admirable figure-head for the 
collegiate ship ; but, though I speak of course as a cabin- 
boy, I never heard of his troubling himself about the crew. 

His sayings, however, were "extremely quoted." I re- 
member one (it was, at least, always attributed to him) 
which struck me as admirable. I have never heard it 
since, and it may be forgotten, which it does not deserve 
to be. He was at that time in controversy with Sir David 
Brewster about the plurality of worlds, and took, as is 
well known, the view that there was but one world, as 
was very natural, considering the prominent place he 
occupied in it. 



Thomas Chenery. 45 

Some one slyly pointed out to him the passage in the 
Vulgate, Nonne erant decern niimdi? To which he in- 
stantly replied, " Very true, hut look at the next question, 
Tlhi sunt novern .^" ^ 

My acquaintance with Thomas Chenery, the late editor 
of the TimeSy with whom I became afterwards long and 
intimately connected, began at Cambridge. We belonged 
to the same Shakespeare club, and many times heard the 
chimes at midnight (from a good many churches) together. 
The same tenderness and consideration for others distin- 
guished him then which were his attributes in later life, 
and endeared him to all with whom he was brought into 
contact. A man even then of some reticence and reserve 
of manner, unusual in youth, but which once broken 
through revealed one of the kindest of human hearts. I 
am glad here to acknowledge, what he himself wotild 
have been slow to admit (for he never remembered his 
own kindnesses), that I am under great and lasting obli- 
gations to him. 

Life at Cambridge in my time was admirably described 
both by pen and pencil ; author and artist were, however, 
rather my seniors, and to my own loss I did not become 
acquainted with them till after I left college. The author 
was J. Delaware Lewis, whose " Sketches of Cantabs " is 
to my mind the liveliest little book ever written by an 
undergraduate ; its keenness of observation greatly im- 
pressed Dickens, who told me that he had applied to him 
in consequence to write for Household Words, and added 
that it was the only case in which he had ever done so. 

* For the benefit of the " country gentleman " and the ladies whose 
shortcomings upon such matters I sympathize with and share, it may be 
well to state that the word " mundus " stands for both " the world " and 
*' cleansed." 



46 Some Literary Recollections. 

The artist was Jolin Roget, whose " Language of Mathe- 
matics " and " Cambridge Sketch-book " were the delight 
of my Cambridge contemporaries. 

Undergraduates who feel some wish to distinguish 
themselves, but to whom the studies of the University are 
not attractive, generally turn their attention to oratory, 
for the exhibition of which the debates at the "Union" 
give great opportunity ; and if I came under any particu- 
lar heading in Mr. Lewis's classification of his fellow-stu- 
dents, it was that of " the Unionic Cantab." 

The debates were almost always upon political sub- 
jects, and I remember having had the hardihood on one 
occasion to place upon the notice-board a proposition for 
the sweeping away of the hereditary aristocracy of our 
native land, which created no little sensation. There was 
an* immense audience, but those who came to laugh re- 
mained, I fear, to carry out their intention, since the 
motion had but eight supporters. Last year I note that 
the same proposition gained one hundred votes, which 
shows that, though opinion at college moves like the tor- 
toise, it does move ; at school its motion, if it moves at 
all, is that of a glacier — imperceptible. 

Charming as is undergraduate life at college, with its 
youth and health, and freedom from carking cares, it is 
outdone by the joys of a reading party in the long vaca- 
tion — especially when you yourself have no intention of 
reading. I joined such a party in my second year, at 
Inverary, not without invitation from the authorities (its 
two " coaches ") of course, but very little, I fear, to its ad- 
vantage. When I had done with my own light* studies, 

* With Englishmen all literature in their own language is called 
*' light." Shakespeare is light ; ^schylus, Euripides, and even Aristopha- 
nes are deemed not heavy, of course (Heavens !), but serious. 



A Disturbing Element. 47 

which was comparatively early in the day, I became what 
the mathematical coach termed " a disturbing element." 
I was like the boy in the fable who, having a holiday on 
his hands, requested the diligent animals to play with 
him ; but we differed in this respect — in my case they 
consented. " I lost eight places in the tripos through that 
fellow," one of them was once heard to murmur, in sub- 
sequent deprecation of poor me. The idea of the tripos 
at Inverary indeed seemed preposterous ; it was such " a 
far cry " from Loch Awe. It should now be a comfort to 
him to reflect that his friendship doubled for me the 
charms of that delightful spot, and assisted the growth 
of my ideas. 

For the next twenty years it was my custom to visit 
every summer some picturesque locality, which I have 
always found to give freshness to my pen, but nothing 
ever surpassed that time at Inverary : 

" Dhuloch, Queen of inland waters, 
Virgin yet so near allied ; 
Morn and eve with plaint and tremor 
Sought for Ocean's bride ; 

" Xever more I woo thine echoes, 
Never let the oar-blades glance, 
Lightly as the wings of heron, 
Xot to break thy trance." 

Those days are gone, those places I shall never revisit, 
but they still abide with me — 

" My heart leaps back to rock and fell. 
The bridge, the quai, the streets uprise 
To glass themselves in tearful eyes. 
And all the haunts we loved so well" 



48 8ome Literary Recollections, 

In the ensuing summer, after the publication of another 
volume of poems, I visited Edinburgh and called upon 
De Quincey, to whom I had a letter of introduction from 
Miss Mitf ord. He was at that time residing at Lasswade, 
a few miles from the town, and I went thither by coach. 
He lived a secluded life, and even at that date had be- 
come to the world a name rather than a real personage ; 
but it was a great name. Considerable alarm agitated 
my youthful heart as I drew near the house ; I felt like 
Burns on the occasion when he w^as first about '' to dinner 
wi' a Lord :" it was a great honor, but something rather 
to be talked about afterwards than to be enjoyed in itself. 
There were passages in De Quincey's writings which 
showed that the English opium-eater was not always in 
a dreamy state, but could be severe and satirical. My 
apprehensions, however, proved to be utterly groundless, 
for a more gracious and genial personage I never met. 
Picture to yourself a very diminutive man, carelessly — 
very carelessly — dressed ; a face lined, careworn, and so 
expressionless that it reminded one of " that chill, change- 
less brow", w^here cold Obstruction's apathy appals the 
gazing mourner's heart " — a face like death in life. The 
instant he began to speak, however, it lit up as though 
by electric light ; this came from his marvellous eyes, 
brighter and more intelligent (though by fits) than I have 
ever seen in any other mortal. They seemed to me to 
glow with eloquence. He spoke of my introducer, of 
Cambridge, of the Lake Country, and of English poets. 
Each theme w^as interesting to me, but made infinitely 
more so by some apt personal reminiscence. As for the 
last-named subject, it was like talking of the Olympian 
gods to one not only cradled in their creed, but who had 
mingled with them, himself half an immortal. 



De Quincey. 49 

The announcement of luncheon was perhaps for the 
first time in my young life unwelcome to me. Miss De 
Quincey did the honors with gracious hospitality, pleased, 
I think, to find that her father had so rapt a listener. I 
was asked what wine I would take, and not caring which 
it was, I was about to pour myself out a glass from the 
decanter that stood next to me. ''You must not take 
that," whispered my hostess, '' it is not port-wine, as you 
think." It was in fact laudanum, to which De Quincey 
presently helped himself with the greatest sang-froid, I 
regarded him aghast, Avith much the same feelings as 
those with which he himself had watched the Malay at 
Grasmere eat the cake of opium, and with the same harm- 
less result. The liquor seemed to stimulate rather than 
dull his eloquence. As I took my leave, after a most en- 
joyable interview, to meet the coach, I asked him whether 
he ever came by it into Edinburgh. 

"What!" he answered, in a tone of extreme surprise; 
" by coach? Certainly not." 

I was not aware of his peculiarities ; but the association 
of commonplace peoj^le and their pointless observations 
were in fact intolerable to him. They did not bore him 
in the ordinary sense, but seemed, as it were, to outrage 
his mind. To me, to whom the study of human nature 
in any form had become even then attractive, this was 
unintelligible, and I suppose I showed it in my face, for 
he proceeded to explain matters. " Some years ago," he 
said, ''I was standing on the pier at Tarbet, on Loch 
Lomond, waiting for the steamer. A stout old lady 
joined me ; I felt that she would presently address me, 
and she did. Pointing to the smoke of the steamer which 
was making itself seen above the next headland, ' There 
she comes,' she said ; ' la, sir ! if you and I had seen that 

3 



50 Some Literary Becollections, 

fifty years ago how wonderful we should have thought 
it !' Now the same sort of thing," added my host, with 
a shiver, ^' might happen to me any day, and that is why 
I always avoid a public conveyance." 

My interview with De Quincej^- 1 was not likely to for- 
get, but I never flattered myself that he would have any 
remembrance of his youthful visitor. A few years after- 
wards, however, I received from him an entire edition of 
his works, with a most gracious allusion (in the " Autobio- 
graphical Sketches ") to my poems. " The Story of the 
Student of St. Bees," he says, "has been made the subject 
of a separate poem by my friend Mr. James Payn, of 
Trinity College. The volume contains thoughts of great 
beauty, too likely to escape the vapid and irreflective 
reader." This good-natured eulogy rang in my ears for 
many a day, nor did my college friends forget at all 
events one portion of it ; with a monstrous misapplica- 
tion of terms, they henceforward dubbed me "the vapid 
and irreflective reader." I remember my mother showing, 
with pardonable pride, this criticism of De Quincey to a 
Dean of the English Church, who was then at the head 
of the High-Church party at Oxford. " Very flattering 
to your son, madam, no doubt," he said ; " but who is 
this Mr. De Quincey?" 

Such ignorance was of course unpardonable in my eyes, 
but it is quite amazing how ignorant so-called scholars 
often are of matters connected with the literature of their 
own country ; in many cases they even fail to understand 
its beauties when they are pointed out to them, while, on 
the other hand, anything written in a dead language, how- 
ever dull and poor, they value at a fancy price. I was 
at that time undergoing the infliction of "The Seven 
Against Thebes " in the Trinity lecture-rooni ; the play 



Rejections, 51 

was introduced to us under the most favorable circum- 
stances, for W. G. Clark was our lecturer, who had the 
art of illustrating everything he had to discourse upon in 
the happiest manner ; but nothing could conceal its dul- 
ness. I questioned him in private as to what he really 
thought of it. " Do, pray, be honest with me," I said ; 
"the play is by -^schylus, I know, but is it not rub- 
bish?" 

" It is certainly not his masterpiece," was all I could 
get out of him, accompanied, however, with a droop of 
the eye that spoke volumes. It was hardly to be ex- 
pected that an augur should have been more frank save 
to another augur. 

In addition to my two volumes of poems, I wrote while 
at Cambridge for various periodicals ; more often for 
them than in them. The article I had written in House- 
hold Words no doubt owed its acceptance to the peculiar 
information it afforded rather than to its literary merits, 
and for a long time I endured continuous rejection from 
that quarter. It may be of some comfort to youthful 
aspirants to hear that in one year I had six-and-twenty 
articles rejected by various " organs." Improved and en- 
larged, they have all since seen the light, but in those 
early years disappointment was my constant mate ; it 
was never, however, checkmate. I always felt that I 
had something to tell worth hearing, if I only knew how 
to tell it and could get anybody (an editor) to listen to 
me. I wrote in all sorts of ephemeral magazines ; one of 
them, the Welcome Guest, published a paper of mine on 
college life called " My Degree," which was placard- 
ed on all the walls of Cambridge. That, I thought, was 
fame indeed, and I was probably neither the first nor the 
last who has confused reputation with advertisement. 



52 Some Literary Recollections, 

The first notice I ever had in a newspaper was a review 
of my " Stories from Boccaccio," by George Brimley (at 
that time the Librarian of Trinity), which appeared in 
the Spectator ; it was thirty years ago, but I have not 
forgotten it or the writer. It was like ten thousand ton- 
ics in a single dose. When I became a reviewer myself, 
and had to deal with a young author who had gen- 
uine merit in him, I never failed to recall the encourage- 
ment I had myself received when I most needed it. It is 
very easy to be scathing ; but if even a morose-natured 
man could be aware of the torture he inflicts — how w^ith 
that easy wheel of his ''he sets sharp racks at work to 
pinch and peel" — he would mingle a little of the milk of 
human kindness w^ith his gall. Even if he be not conscious 
of having ever possessed literary merit himself, he has at 
least been young, and can remember the sensitiveness of 
youth. Let him spoil the rod on the author of well-sea- 
goned skin (on me^ if he likes, and welcome), but spare the 
child. 

Reviewers who are popularly supposed to be the young 
author's enemies are generally quite the reverse. Their 
power to injure merit where it really exists has been 
absurdly exaggerated, but not more than their will. The 
best of them are often authors themselves, who (notwith- 
standing the popular sneer) have not failed in authorship ; 
and the same circumstances — the love of books and the 
society of genial and cultured folk — which mollify the 
mind of authors and prevent them from becoming fero- 
cious, have the same effect upon themselves. For my 
part, with here and there the exception of some young 
gentleman trying his 'prentice hand in not very high- 
class literary organs, I have always found reviewers at 
least as quick to appreciate as to condemn. 



A Mormon Community, 53 

There was a Mormon community in my time at Cambridge 
which interested me. I sometimes attended their chapel 
and became acquainted with one of their elders, whom 
I do not think was a rogue. At all events, he did not take 
advantage of his creed, for so far from having a plurality 
of wives, he had not even one. He had not the faintest 
spark of humor in his composition, but one of his state- 
ments greatly tickled me. He professed to have a great 
reverence for the Holy Scriptures, to which Mr. Joe Smith's 
book was, in his view, the supplement. I asked him how 
he got over the text, ^'If any man shall add unto these 
things," etc. He reflected for a moment, and then replied, 
" That refers to the commentators." 

I have forgotten to say that after leaving Woolwich I 
was intended for the Church, so that my attendance at 
the Mormon chapel arose from no lapse from orthodoxy. 
It was only that I was desirous of becoming acquainted 
with every phase of human nature. I attended in due 
course the theological lectures, but the recollection of 
them has vanished ; the " dust of creeds " seems to have 
confused me, to judge by an old examination paper which 
I came across the other day, on the back of which a few 
crude elements of faith are written in verse. One of them 
runs : 

*' I believe in the fat Johnian whose face in the sun doth shine, 
And who, not looking in the least like a human being, I conclude to be 
divine." 

This could hardly have been a serious confession of 
faith. 

I took my degree, however — a first-class " Poll," which 
my good folks at home believed to be an honorable dis- 
tinction. I learned very quickly what little was required 
for this purpose, but it ail passed away like water from a 



54 Some Literary Recollections. 

duck's back. Greek was always '^ Greek " to me, and its 
grammar I detested with a hatred that I find it difficult 
to feel even for my personal enemies ; there was the less 
excuse for me, as I certainly knew little about it. 

I remember dining with one of the examiners, after my 
work in the Senate House was over, who was telling sto- 
ries about the examinations of the previous day. " There 
is one young gentleman," he said, "who, if he does not 
know more about mathematics than classics, will most as- 
suredly be plucked. He has declined [xiyac, as if it were a 
participle, fiiyag, fieyaca, jjiiyav.^^ The table was in a roar, 
and it was agreed on all hands that, however he did the 
other papers, that dunce ought to be plucked. It was a 
humiliating circumstance, but I v/as compelled in honor to 
confess to that examiner in private how the thing had 
occurred. My next neighbor in the Senate House had 
been in difficulties about that very word, and had applied 
to me for assistance. "My dear fellow," I had frankly 
replied, " I know nothing about it ; I am not going to 
touch fiiyar ; but if you ask me my opinion about its 
declination, I should say it was fxiyac, fiiyacra, /icyaj/." I 
am glad to say this explanation saved the second-hand 
offender. 

Notwithstanding this stupendous ignorance, I suppose 
I had read more of one thing and another when I left col- 
lege than most men of the same age, though apparently 
to little purpose. The net results of a very expensive edu- 
cation were almost nil — a ten-pound note would have rep- 
resented their value ; and yet for the object I had in view, 
and which I afterwards pursued not without success, I 
venture to think that I by no means threw my time away. 
I had gained, for my years, a very sound knowledge of 
human nature, and made acquaintance with an immense 



Translations. 55 

mass of English literature of the lighter kind. Lan- 
guages, living or dead, I could never acquire any more 
than music, for which I have no ear. I spent many years 
over French and German, but could never read (far less 
converse in) either language with facility. This unfortu- 
nate circumstance has enabled me to speak of translations 
with more familiarity and less contempt than is usual. It 
is generally observed, by those who can read foreign au- 
thors in the original, that " everything is lost in transla- 
tion." This assertion, while undoubtedly a slap in the 
face, as it is intended to be, to the exclusively English 
reader, is not much of a compliment to the foreign author. 
It can hardly be denied that some works "bear" transla- 
tion ; the Bible, for example (though this is by no means 
generally known), was not originally written in English. 
There are but few of us who have read "Don Quixote" 
in the original, and yet it is much admired. The fact 
is that some authors do lose everything in translation ; 
but some do not, and in some cases they retain a great 
deal. 

Of " Wallenstein " it has been even said that the trans- 
lator has excelled the author, though, if he did so, in my 
opinion he wasted his time. 

The wits suffer the most (if one were to judge of Greek 
Wit, for example, by the volume lately published in Eng- 
lish under that name, one would say, " These are quota- 
tions from Mr. Merryman, of the circus"), and next to 
them the poets. Not ten per cent, of their original merit 
is left to them. But the ordinary prose writers, the his- 
torians, the essayists, and even the novelists, are recogniz- 
able enough in their new dress. Indeed, these last retain 
some very respectable attractions which it is mere affec- 
tation to deny them. Balzac, I admit, is not translatable. 



56 Some Literary Recollections. 

or when translated is not readable ; but Victor Hugo, even 
in foreign attire, is superior to most novelists in their na- 
tive garb ; and the same may be said (at all events of his 
masterpiece, *' Monte Cristo") of Dumas. It is undoubt- 
edly a great deprivation to be near-sighted ; but it does 
not mend matters, and is also untrue, to say of such a per- 
son " he is stone-blind." 

Soon after I took my degree I married. It was deli- 
cately said by a friend that, but for my intention so to do, 
I should have read for honors and distinguished myself; 
for what was the use of gaining a fellowship (and taking 
it away from some poor fellow w^ho really wanted it) to 
lose it the next year or so by matrimony ? Success, how- 
ever (when I think of that ^dyao, business), seems hardly 
to have been a certainty, and it may be even thought by 
some people that I did not sacrifice much academical dis- 
tinction on the altar. 

I am only setting down some reminiscences more or less 
in connection with literature, so I say nothing about my 
marriage. If I were writing an autobiography, I should 
have to say a great deal about it, or else leave out the 
source and cause of the happiness of my life. I may re- 
mark, however, to those who propose to themselves a lit- 
erary life, and can find a wife one-tenth as good as has 
fallen to my lot, that they had better make sure of her 
early, for of a truth they will need a comforter. There 
is no calling, it is true, so bright and pleasant, so full of 
genial friendship, as well as of far-off but touching sym- 
pathies, so radiant with the glories of success ; but there 
is also no pursuit so doubtful, so full of risks, so subject 
to despondency and disappointments, so open to despair 
itself. It will not be denied that I have confessed to ig- 
norance enough, but I know a few things well, and this is 



The Literary Calling, 57 

one of them. Oh, my young friend with a "turn for 
literature," think twice and thrice before committing 
yourself to it, or you may bitterly regret to find yourself 
w^here that ''turn" may take you. Let every man be 
fully satisfied in his own mind, and have a reason for the 
faith that is in him. The calling (though by no means a 
phenomenal one, as it is the custom to assert) is an excep- 
tional one, and even at the best you will have trials and 
troubles of which you dream not, and to which no other 
calling is exposed. I say again, verily you will need a 
comforter, and the best of comforters is she who sits by 
the hearth at home. Nevertheless, I need scarcely add, 
however confident you may be of winning your way to 
fame and fortune, be not so selfish as. to link your fate 
with hers upon the prospects of an untried pen. For, if 
you do so, even though you should have genius, it will be 
the genius that is allied to madness. 

One indirect but important advantage to a man of let- 
ters in early marriage is that, if a happy one, it rescues 
him from Bohemianism. It is a charming "ism," and he 
who has not a strain of it in his character is to be pitied; 
but it is hut an " ism " — a branch of dissent, and not the 
Catholic and Universal Church of Humanity. 

If one must needs belong to a sect, it is^f or him whose 
business it is to depict human nature — as good as any, 
and better than most; but it as little represents the world 
as does the most conventional of "genteel circles." The 
Bohemian writer, who is called by the more charitable of 
square-toed folks " peculiar," does not hold the mirror up 
to nature much more than one of the genuine "Peculiar 
People " might do, if he should essay to represent it. 
The Bohemian female writer in particular — whose object 
seems to be to inform us that she has never met a respect- 

3* 



58 Some Literary liecollections. 

able specimen of her own sex in her life — reflects for us 
the most, distorted images. 

My first introduction, by- the-bye, to the Bohemians was 
very humorous; and as the race — except on paper — is fast 
dying out, it may be thought worth while to mention it. 
An eminent member of the guild asked me to dine with 
him at one of the old Legal ''Inns." I was very young, 
and greatly flattered; I thought I was about to meet the 
most famous persons in the three kingdoms; and though 
they were all of them of the male sex, I felt it was in- 
cumbent on me to put on evening attire. My host re- 
ceived me very cordially, but with a certain cock of his 
eye which I did not like. He was in his dressing-gown 
and slippers. My fellow-guests, eight in number, were 
all in shooting- jackets. This made me a little uncomforta- 
ble; but they were very agreeable, clever fellows, and we 
all sat down to dinner in the highest spirits — no, not all ; 
there had been ten, there were now nine of us. 

"What the deuce has become of A ?" inquired our 

host. 

" Oh, he has taken himself off," explained one of the 
party, looking hard at my shirt-studs; "he said he would 
be hanged if he sat down to dinner with a man who 
dressed in evening clothes." 

My position was exactly the reverse of that of the 
guest who came to the marriage-feast without an appro- 
priate garment ; I was too magnificent for the occasion ; 
but it was the very last time any one has had to complain 
of me in that respect. 

All these things are changed; the Bohemians of to-day 
now wear purple and fine linen on all occasions without 
the slightest provocation — and when even the Rabelais 
Club dine together, it is, I understand, de rigueur to wear 



Leitch Ritchie. 59 

evening clothes, though I doubt whether " the Master " 
would have quite approved of it. 

My literary gains for the first year of my married life 
were exactly thirty-two pounds fifteen shillings ; upon 
which, if I had had to live, it would have been cultivat- 
ing literature upon oatmeal, indeed, and very little of it ; 
but the next year my income was quadrupled, and from 
that time increased, not indeed by arithmetical progres- 
sion, but certainly in a very unlooked-for and satisfactory 
proportion. It was at first mainly drawn from Souse- 
hold Words and Chambers^s Journal, from the conductors 
of which I began to receive great encouragement. In 
the former periodical I had often two contributions in 
one weekly number, and I remember one occasion when 
there were even three. For the latter I wrote almost 
every week. Its editor was at that time Leitch Ritchie, 
a man of somewhat severe culture and fastidious taste, 
but of a most kindly nature. He welcomed fun in any 
shape, even at his own expense. It is well known that 
Leitch the painter was called ^^ Leitch with the itch," to 
distinguish him from Leech the Pimch artist ; and one 
person (but not a Scotch person) was so rude as to say 
of Leitch Ritchie that ''he had the national complaint 
twice in his name." Even this he bore very good-hu- 
moredly. He was in ill-health, and endured such suffer- 
ing as might well have excused some impatience with his 
contributors, but he took the greatest pains with them. 
Even the rejected ones (and this is perhaps the greatest 
triumph to which courtesy can attain) had a good word 
for him ; while those who had merit never failed to find 
it recognized. He made many a young heart to rejoice in 
his time, but never more so than when he wrote to ask me 
to come up to Edinburgh and share his literary duties as 



60 Some Literary Recollections, 

editor of Chambers^ s Journal, " I have long felt the need 
of help," he said; '^will you come and be my co-editor?" 
I suppose five men out of six would have written sub- 
editor ; but the natural graciousness of his disposition 
caused him to italicize the ca 



Kindness of Men of Letters. 61 



Chapter III. 

MISS MITFORD. 

I MUST now make a digression, or rather an interpo- 
lation, to introduce two eminent literary personages, to 
whom I owe a great deal, but the world much more. My 
introduction to them took place before I went to college, 
but mention of them has necessarily been postponed, so 
as not to interfere with the natural sequence of matters. 

A desk lies before me, of plain make but mighty size : 
one that used to hold all sorts of things, from caterpillars 
(which never spun a thread) to "cribs," when I was a 
boy at school ; but which, for more than a quarter of a 
century, has held " those dead leaves which keep their 
green, the noble letters of the dead." Their writers were 
no ordinary men and women ; they have all left name and 
fame behind them ; but that which smells sweeter to me 
and blossoms in their dust is their unfailing kindness. It 
is not because they are dead and gone that I feel so sure 
of this. With me Death has never afforded, as it does 
with so many folks, a cheap asylum for unpleasant people. 
I think none the better of them for having gone, though 
I am sincerely glad they went, for I am sure they would 
not have gone could they have helped it. But when I 
think of these my Mentors (which most of them were), 
my heart brims full of gracious memories. I contrast 
their behavior to the Young and Struggling with the 
harshness of the Lawyer, the hardness, of the Man of Busi- 



62 Some Literary Recollections. 

ness, the contempt of the Man of the World, and am 
proud to belong to their calling. 

There are intelligent persons who make a living out of 
their fellow-creatures by pretending to read character in 
handwriting. It would be rather hard upon their art to 
send them half a dozen letters out of this desk. What 
would they make, I wonder, for example, out of this deli- 
cate microscopic writing, looking as if it were done with 
a stylus, and without blot or flaw ? The paper is all odds 
and ends, and not a scrap of it but is covered and crossed ; 
the very flaps of the envelopes, and even the outside of 
them, having their message. The reason of this is that 
the writer, a lady, had lived in a time w^hen postage 
was very dear ; like Southey, she used to boast that she 
could send more for her money by post than any one 
else ; and when the necessity no longer existed the cus- 
tom remained. 

How, at her age, her eyes could read what she herself 
had written, used to puzzle me. She was known to those 
of the last generation as having written the most graphic 
and wholesome description of country life of her time ; 
she was known to their fathers as a writer of historical 
plays, which were performed at the two great national 
theatres with marked success — two of them, I believe, 
at the same time. Conceive what a fuss would be made 
nowadays about any woman in an obscure country village 
whose dramas were being played by the first actors of the 
day (Young and Macready were her exponents) at Drury 
Lane and Covent Garden ! Yet this was the case with 
Mary Russell Mitford. 

" My ' Rienzi,' " she says, in a letter now before me, 
"ran a hundred nights in the best days of the drama." 
She used to tell a capital story anent this play, illustrative 



Talfourd, 63 

of the ignorance of great lawyers of matters outside their 
own profession. One of her Majesty's judges was calling 
on her in her village home, and congratulated her upon 
the performance of her " Rienzi," which he had just been 
to see. "It's an admirable play," he said. "Has it any 
foundation in fact ?" "Well, of course ; you have surely 
read of Rienzi? It's all in Gibbon, yonder," and she 
pointed to that author's works upon her crowded book- 
shelves. " Is it, indeed ?" he answered ; " then I should 
like to read about him." And he took away tkQ first 
volume. 

To hear her narrate that story was as good as any play. 
I seem to see the dear little old lady now, looking like a 
venerable fairy, with bright sparkling eyes, a clear, inci- 
sive voice, and a laugh that carried you away with it. I 
never saw a woman with such an enjoyment of — I was 
about to say a joke, but the word is too coarse for her — 
of a pleasantry. She was the warmest of friends, and 
with all her love of fun never alluded to their weaknesses. 
For Talfourd (who, we may be sure, did know about 
"Rienzi") she had a very affectionate regard. I once 
told her what was at that time a new story about his 
"Ion : a Tragedy." He was very vain of that drama, and 
never missed an opportunity of seeing it acted, whether 
in town or country. Some wit, who had this narrated to 
him, observed, " But surely he does not go to see ' Ion ' 
noio that he has become a judge .^" 

How she laughed — and then how grave she looked ! 
" You would not have told me that story, I am sure, my 
dear," she said, laying her hand upon my arm reproving- 
ly, " if you had known that Talfourd is a great friend of 
mine." 

She had a right to rebuke me, for there was half a cen- 



64 Some Literary Becollections. 

tury or so between our ages. I had been introduced to 
her when a very young man, and had sought her advice 
about literary matters with the intention, as usual, of tak- 
ing my own way at all events. I well remember our first 
interview. I expected to find the authoress of '' Our Vil- 
lage " in a most picturesque residence, overgrown with 
honeysuckle and roses, and set in an old-fashioned garden. 
Her little cottage at Swallowfield, near Reading, did not 
answer this picture at all. It was a cottage, but not a 
pretty one, placed where three roads met, with only a 
piece of green before it. But if the dwelling disappointed 
me, the owner did not. I was ushered up-stairs (for at 
that time crippled by rheumatism she was unable to leave 
her room) into a small apartment, lined with books from 
floor to ceiling, and fragrant with flowers ; its tenant rose 
from her arm-chair with difficulty, but with a sunny smile 
and a charming manner bade me welcome.* My father 



* In the desk before mentioned there is a letter of Charles Kingsley'^s 
which describes Miss Mitford very graphically as follows : " I can never 
forget the little figure rolled np in two chairs in the little Swallowfield 
room, packed round with books up to the ceiling, on to the floor — the little 
figure with clothes on, of course, but of no recognized or recognizable pat- 
tern ; and somew^here out of the upper end of the heap, gleaming under a 
great, deep, globular brow, two such eyes as I never, perhaps, saw in any 
other Englishwoman — though I believe she must have had French blood 
in her veins to breed such eyes, and such a tongue, for the beautiful speech 
which came out of that ugly (it was that) face; and the glitter and depth 
too of the eyes, like live coals — perfectly honest the while, both lip& and 
eyes — these seemed to me to be attributes of the highest French, or rather 
GalUc, not of the highest English woman. In any case, she was a triumph 
of mind over matter, of spirit over flesh ; which gave the lie to all Materia 
alism, and puts Professor Bain out of court — at least out of court with 
those who use fair induction about the men and women whom they meet 
and know." 



Miss Mitford^s Father. 65 

had been an old friend of hers, and she spoke of my home 
and belongings as only a woman can speak of such things. 
Then we plunged in medias res — into men and books. 

She seemed to me to have known everybody worth 
knowing, from the Duke of Wellington (her near neigh- 
bor) to the last new verse-maker, whom I had just super- 
seded ; he had become the last but one. She talked like 
an angel, but her views upon poetry, as a calling in life, 
shocked me not a little. I was in love, of course, and 
she shocked me even more upon that subject. She said 
she preferred a marriage de convenance to a love-match, 
because it generally turned out better. ''This surprises 
you," she said, smiling, " but then I suppose I am the least 
romantic person that ever wrote plays." 

She was much more proud of her plays (which had even 
then been well-nigh forgotten) than of the works by 
which she was so well known, and which at that time 
brought people from the ends of the earth to see her. I 
suppose she was one of the earliest English authors who 
was '' interviewed " by the Americans. She was far from 
democratic, but always spoke of that nation with great 
respect. What surprised me much more Avas her admira- 
tion for Louis Napoleon ; upon which point, as on many 
others, we soon agreed to differ. She even approved of 
the coup d'etat ; concerning which she writes to me, a 
little apologetically, '' My enthusiasm is always ready laid, 
you know, like a housemaid's fire :" which was very true. 

Nothing ever destroyed her faith in those she loved. 
If I had not known all about him (from my own folk of 
another generation who had known him well), I should 
have thought her father had been a patriot and a martyr. 
She spoke of him as if there had never been such a father 
— which in a sense was true. He had spent his wife's 



66 Some Literary Recollections, 

fortune, and then another which had fallen in to him, and 
then the £10,000 which "little Mary" herself had got for 
him by hitting on the lucky number in a lottery, and was 
rapidly getting through her own modest earnings in the 
same free-handed manner, when good -fortune removed 
him ; but she always deemed it an irreparable loss. " I 
used to contrive to keep our house in order," she would 
say, speaking of her literary gains, " and a little pony-car- 
riage, and my dear, dear father." To my mind he seemed 
like a Mr. Turveydrop, but he had really been a most ac- 
complished and agreeable person, though with nothing 
sublime about him except his selfishness. 

She had the same exaggerated notions of the virtues 
and talents of her friends (including myself) ; nay, her 
sympathies extended even to their friends, whom she did 
not know. Of course she had her prejudices by way of 
complement ; and when she spoke of those who did not 
please her, her tongue played about their reputations like 
sheet-lightning — for there was much more flash than fork 
in it. 

Literature in those days monopolized its disciples much 
more than it does now, when " cultured " persons of all 
kinds favor the world with their lucubrations. Miss 
Mitford lived and breathed and moved in an atmosphere 
of books ; and when she was not writing books, she was 
writing about them.* There is hardly any work of merit 
of that time — I am speaking of thirty years ago — which 
she does not discuss in these letters, and always with a 
vehemence of feeling and expression as though it were a 
thing of life. A bad book — I mean one with distinct 

* " This is the twelfth letter I have written to-day," she says on one oc- 
casion, apologizing to me for a shorter epistle than usual. 



Love of the Country, 67 

faults of style or tone — made her as indignant as a bad 
man. Her views in this respect were of immense service 
to me. A young writer who has high spirits (and mine 
were mountains high in those days) is almost always flip- 
pant, and needs the pruning - knife. " Be careful as to 
style," she writes ; " give as much character as you can, 
and as much truth^ that being the foundation of all merit 
in literature and art." 

My earliest efforts in story - telling were of a very 
morbid character ; an undisciplined imagination, with ill- 
health to help it, caused me to dwell upon the eerie as- 
pects of life. She warned me against all such monopo- 
lizing influences. '' Let me tell you what Charles Kings- 
ley told me the first time we ever met. He said that he 
had flung himself into a remote and by-gone historical 
subject (' Hypatia') in order to escape from the too vivid 
impressions of the social evils of England at the present 
day. They pressed upon him, he said, unceasingly and 
dangerously, and he felt he could not get too soon out 
of their influence. Once before he had been so carried 
away by the metaphysics of the elder Coleridge (Der- 
went Coleridge was his tutor), that he for some years 
read nothing but science and natural history. So there 
is a fear." 

Her own mind was a most wholesome one. She de- 
lighted in simple pleasures, kind natures, and enthusiastic 
people ; her love for the country approached idolatry. 

" So you do not write out-of-doors ? I do — but in a 
very anti-pastoral manner, sitting in a great chair at a 
table. I am writing so at this moment at a corner of the 
house under a beautiful acacia-tree with as njany snowy 
tassels as leaves. It is waving its world of fragrance 
over my head, mingled with the orange-like odors of a 



68 Some Literary RecoUections, 

syringa-bush ; and there is a jar of pinks and roses on 
the table. I have a love of sweet smells that amounts to 
a passion. My chief reason, however, just now for being 
here, is that it is a means of enjoying the fresh air with- 
out fatigue. I am still unable to obtain it in any other 
way than this, and by being led in the pony-chair most 
ignominiously at a foot's pace through the lanes." 

The smallest object in nature was not beneath her no- 
tice, and any occurrence of the simplest sort connected 
with natural beauty impressed itself on her mind. " A 

night or two ago my maid K (that initial, by which 

she is always called, stands for her very Scriptural but 
most unmusical name of Keren-happuch), while putting 
me to bed, burst into a series of exclamations which it 
was impossible to stop ; her attention, however, was clear- 
ly fixed upon the candlestick, and, following her eyes, I 
saw what seemed a dusky caterpillar ; it moved, and then 
appeared the bright reflection of a tiny spot of greenish 
light, now increasing, now diminishing, according to the 
position of the insect. It was a glowworm. Upon the 
table were two jars of flowers, and one of wild woodbine 
from the lane had only just been taken aAvay. With one 
or other of those flowers it doubtless came. But was it 
not singular ? Extinguishing the candle, I sent the can- 
dlestick down to the little court in front of the house, 
where it was deposited upon the turf, and in ten minutes 
my visitor had crawled out upon the grass, w^here it will, 

I trust, live out its little life in peace. K , who has 

lived with me fifteen years (and whom you must learn to 
know and like), said, knowing how fond I used to be of 
these stars of the earth, that ' now I could not go to them, 
they came to me.' " 

She was exceedingly attached to this domestic, and had 



Keren-hwppuch. 69 
therefore, as usual, the highest admiration for her. " K 



is a great curiosity ; by far the cleverest woman in these 
parts, not in a literary way [this was not to disappoint 
me, who was all for literature], but in everything that 
is useful. She could make a court-dress for a duchess, or 
cook a dinner for a lord mayor ; but her principal talent 
is shown in managing everybody whom she comes near, 
especially her husband and myself. She keeps the money 
of both, and never allows either of us to spend sixpence 
without her knowledge, and is quite inflexible in case she 
happens to disapprove of the intended expenditure. You 
should see the manner in which she makes Sam reckon 
with her, and her contempt for all women who do not 
manage their husbands." 

This is surely a homely picture, very characteristic, and 
appropriate to the authoress of "Our Village." She de- 
tested everything affected and artificial, of course, and 
what she would have said of the aesthetic and classical 
writers of the present day who call our old acquaint- 
ances, in despite of custom, by new-fangled names (such 
as Kikero for Cicero), I tremble to think ! 

I suppose in my brand-new University '' culture " I had 
found something amiss with the pronunciation of the 
names in one of her plays, for she writes : " The false 
quantity in ' Foscari ' is derived from the Kembles^ John 
Kemble, Mrs. Siddons, Charles Kemble (I don't know 
about Mrs. Fanny), all anglicized proper names as Shake- 
speare did before them. Indeed it is the best way to 
avoid discrepancies, and I have always found the most 
accomplished persons doing it whenever they can, and 
eschewing foreign pronunciation as they eschew French 
phrases — one of those worst vulgarities that smack of 
Theodore Hook and the silver-fork school. Remember, 



70 Some Literary Becollections. 

too, that my play was written before the publication of 
Lord Byron's." 

What an impression of the lapse of time does that sen- 
tence give us ! Here is another. Speaking of Haydon, 
whose life by Tom Taylor had just appeared, she says : 
"When I and Wordsworth and Keats, and many oth- 
ers, my betters, first knew him, and were writing, as if in 
concert, sonnets to him," etc. It makes me feel a veter- 
an, indeed, to remember that I once was intimate with a 
contemporary of such writers. De Quincey, however — 
to whom Miss Mitford was afterwards, as I have men- 
tioned, so good as to introduce me — though born in the 
same year, was connected with a still earlier race of liter- 
ary giants. 

Besides her general admiration for good books of all 
sorts. Miss Mitford had an especial fondness for those 
writers who had sung the beauties of the neighborhood in 
which she dwelt, or were otherwise connected with it. I 
believe she loved Gray the better because Stoke Pogis 
was the church-yard he immortalized ; that Pope was 
dearer to her for his lines on her beloved Windsor Forest; 
that her favorite, Burke, had a greater attraction for her 
from his having chosen Beaconsfield for his place of re- 
tirement; and that she admired Milton, even more than 
her fine taste inclined her to do, from his having lived at 
Chalfont. 

It was for this reason, perhaps, though he had very 
real merits of his own, that Thomas Noel's verses so de- 
lighted her. He was the only man of letters whom at 
that time I knew, and all that I could tell her about him 
was interesting to her. He lived a very retired life in a 
secluded cottage at Boyne Hill, near Maidenhead, where 
he cultivated his garden and his muse. I believe he was 



A Garden /Spring. 71 

related to Lord Byron; a circumstance which, combined 
with certain '^peculiar views" (as they were then called) 
upon religious matters, caused him to be regarded some- 
what askance by his more commonplace neighbors. There 
was a rumor — whether true or not, I cannot say — that on 
the death of a favorite child he preferred to bury it in his 
own grounds rather than in the church-yard, which dis- 
turbed the minds of the good folk in those parts not a 
little, and caused me, until I came to know him well, to 
feel a ^^ fearful joy" in his society. 

He was a very dark, handsome man, of reserved de- 
meanor, and, so far, might have sat for one of his rela- 
tive's stagey heroes, but he was in reality of a most gra- 
cious nature. I have letters from him, written to me when 
quite a boy, of a very interesting kind. He lived more 
out of the world than even the little lady at Swallowfield, 
and quite as much in books. These, however, were of a 
less modern kind. I never knew a man so well acquainted 
with the Elizabethan dramatists, or who could quote from 
them so opportunely. From one of them, perhaps, he 
drew his inspiration for the somewhat old-fashioned in- 
scription on the spring in his garden, but the lines have 
a freshness of their own : 

*' Toads and newts and snails, avauntl 

Come not near, nor dwell. 
Where the dapper Fairies haunt, 

By this crystal well. 
But upon the moss-tufts damp 

In the summer night, 
Let the glowworm from her lamp 

Sprinkle starry light : 
And the butterfly by day 
Here her painted wings display ; 



T2 Some Literary Recollections. 

And the hiimmiog-bee be heard, 
And tlie pretty lady-bird, 
Clad in scarlet dropped with jet, 
Here her tiny footsteps set ; 
And the russet-suited wren, 
Ever skipping out of ken. 
And, in gayer plumage vested, 
His wee brother, golden-crested. 
Plying each his busy bill, 
Hither come, and peck at will ; 
And the redbreast on the brink 
Of this basin perch and drink — 
Elf -folk such in favor hold : 
And if aught of human mould. 
Wending hitherward its way. 

Haply here awhile should linger. 
Let it heed this rhymed lay, 

Harmless keep both foot and finger, 
And propitious glances fling 
On the smiling Fairy Spring." 

Thomas Noel's mind invested all the scenes about him 
— and indeed they were fair enough to evoke it — with its 
own poetry. In the " Recollections of a Literary Life " 
Miss Mitf ord has devoted a chapter to him, but unfortu- 
nately these two friends on paper never met. The one 
was too much of an invalid, the other of a recluse, to sur- 
mount even the few miles that lay between them. They 
were both passionately attached to river scenery, and 
Noel's " Thames Voyage " was one of her favorite poems. 
His description of the swan and her family used to strike 
her as very tender and graphic : 

"Lo ! a smiling swan, with a little fleet 

Of cygnets by her side. 
Pushing her snowy bosom sweet 
Against the bubbling tide ! 



Rhyme Craft. 73 

" And see — was ever a lovelier sight ? 

One little bird afloat 
On its mother's back, 'neath her wing so white ! 
A beauteous living boat. 

" The threatful male, as he sails ahead 
Like a champion proud and brave, 
Makes, with his ruffling plumes outspread, 
Fierce jerks along the wave. 

**He tramples the stream, as we pass him by — 

In wrath from its surface springs. 
And after our boat begins to fly 
With loudly flapping wings." 

Thomas Noel's lines on ".Clifden Spring" should be 
known to every lover of the Thames ; but they are not 
known. Poetry did not even bring him fame, though it 
was its own exceeding great reward. 

" Rhyme-craft, many-hued mosaic 
Of the mind, which souls prosaic 
Sneer at in their cold conceit. 
Is it not a pastime sweet ? 
Oh, what twirling of the brains ! 
Painful pleasures ! pleasing pains ! 
Oh, what making, marring, mending ! 
Patching, paring, and perpending ! 
Oh, what hope and fear and doubt, 
Putting in, and pulling out, 
Till a word is found to fit ! 
Then what joy is like to it ? 

" Brother bards, and bardlings all, 
Ye who up Parnassus crawl. 
Ye who, at a rate surprising, 
Set your brains teetotum-izing — 
Boldly I appeal to you ; 
Say, is not my picture true ? 
4 



74 Some Literary Recollections. 

Ye, whom mammon-slaves deem daft, 
Have I slandered sweet rhyme-craft ?'* 

What Thomas Noel was known far and wide for was 
his "Pauper's Drive/' of which the second verse often 
rings in my memory : 

" Oh, where are the mourners ? Alas ! there are none — 
He has left not a gap in the world now he's gone ; 
Not a tear in the eye of child, woman, or man : 
To the grave with his carcass as fast as you can. 
* Rattle his bones over the stones ; 
He's only a pauper, whom nobody owns !' " 

This poem, until Miss Mitford rescued it from the almost 
still-born little volume of poems entitled "Rymes and 
Roundelayes," was always attributed to another Thomas 
— Thomas Hood. 

It has been conjectured, from the extreme polish and 
attraction of her letters, that Miss Mitford wrote them 
with a view to their publication ; but this I am sure was 
not the case. She often described to different correspond- 
ents the same occurrence ; and indeed I think that very 
incident of the glowworm, before mentioned, is narrated 
in another place. In her day letter-writing was an art 
of itself, and literary folk, not being so continuously em- 
ployed in their profession as they are now, could afford 
to practise it. In the next generation authors did not 
write long letters, very seldom indeed wrote letters at all, 
with the exception of Charles Dickens, whose genius was 
so superabundant that he gave of it in all kinds, and, as it 
were, with both hands. 

Miss Mitford herself never knew him ; ill-health and, 
I am sorry to add, poverty, kept her for many years re- 
mote from society of all kinds, which was another reason, 



A Letter-writer. 75 

doubtless, why she devoted herself so much to letter- 
writing. She corresponded with scores of persons whom 
she had never met face to face. In this way she had 
very considerable influence in the world of letters, which 
was always at the service of her friends. She was never 
tired of thus furthering my own ends, even when she did 
not quite approve of them. I have set down elsewhere the 
admirable advice with which she favored me ; the endeav- 
ors she made to turn a very young gentleman, of unset- 
tled prospects and feverish hopes, to embrace some calling 
less precarious than that which (as poor Leitch Ritchie 
used to say) "I hate to hear called 'Light Literature.'" 
Never had a Telemachus so wise and kind a Mentor, but 
it was all of no use. I made my own bed, and have lain 
upon it ever since with tolerable comfort. At last she 
gave it up, and helped me as I wanted to be helped, not 
with the apostle's lukewarm assent — "You will have 
trouble, but I spare you " — but with the liveliest interest. 
" I should like to spoil you, my dear, very much, if I had 
the means," she writes ; " as it is, I am like Ailie Din- 
mont, who, when accused of giving the children their 
own way, replied, '' Eh, puir things, I hae nothing else to 
gie 'em !" 

I had been brought up in the country, without the 
least link to literature in any direction, and she gave me 
introductions to everybody I wanted to know. They 
were of immense advantage to me, but one of the greatest 
gratifications they afforded me was that through one of 
them I became the humble means of establishing friendly 
relations between her and another large-hearted woman 
of letters, of whom Miss Mitford had at that time an un- 
favorable opinion — Harriet Martineau. 

At first she seems to have hesitated to put herself in 



76 Some Literary Recollections, 

communication with her sister authoress. "I never saw 
Miss Martineau but once in my life, and have not hap- 
pened to know or to care for the same people. More- 
over, dear friend, without being in the slightest degree big- 
oted or prudish, I have, to say the least, no sympathy wdth 
her. . . . The truth is, although a clever woman, there 
is nothing about her that tempts one into a f orgetfulness 
of faults as in George Sand. She is not, to my fancy, a 
woman of genius ; all her works are incomplete. Indeed, 
the only things of hers I ever liked were her political 
economy stories, which I used to read, skipping the polit- 
ical economy. Fifty years hence she will be heard of as 
one of the curiosities of our age, but she will not be read. 
This is my Harriet Martineau creed. Nevertheless, if 
you still wish an introduction, why, you have a thou- 
sand claims upon me, and at a word I will put my 
prejudices into my pocket, and send you the best I can 
concoct." 

In spite of this, I had the audacity to be importunate. 
I had a great desire to be acquainted with the authoress 
of "Deerbrook," and I was going up to Lakeland, where 
she lived. To my reiterated request. Miss Mitford, with 
her usual kindness and good-nature, gave way at once. 

*' I cannot bear to think, my dear friend, that you 
should have such good reason to believe me what in real- 
ity I am not, a ferocious bigot or a starched prude ; so I 
do what I ought to have done before, and send you a note 
to Miss Martineau, who is beyond all doubt a remarkable 
woman. I have never read her 'History,' and did not fan- 
cy her novels, especially the one where she compares (?) 
her black hero with Napoleon, and even accuses the great 
Emperor of killing him by cold and starvation ; but I 
agree with you that her boys' stories are charming — how 



An Introduction, 77 

could I ever forget them ? — while her papers on ' Deafness ' 
and ^ Invalid Life ' are full of thought and feeling, I have, 
at all events, now done my best for her in presenting to 
her a very different sort of visitor from those who com- 
monly present themselves at our doors with letters of in- 
troduction." 



'TS Some Literary Becollections. 



Chapter IV. 

MISS MARTINEAU.— WILLIAM ARNOLD. 

Byeon places the best part of human life as respects 
enjoyment at two-and-twenty ; " the myrtle and ivy of 
sweet two-and-twenty," he says, " are worth all your lau- 
rels, however so plenty," and he is probably right. If 
one has meat and drink enough (which at that age is im- 
portant), and our tailor's confidence in us is still fresh, 
that is indeed the palmy time with most of us. But young 
gentlemen with a turn for poetry (or what they confi- 
dently believe to be such) have a still better time than 
others at this happy epoch. 

" Verse a breeze 'mid blossoms straying, 
Where Hope clung feeding like a bee, 
Both were mine, life went a-Maying 
With Nature, Hope, and Poetry, 

When I was young." 

One need not be a Coleridge to appreciate the condi- 
tions of existence under such circumstances, and I verily 
believe there was not a happier being upon the earth's 
surface than I when I went up to Lakeland at two-and- 
twenty with the avowed intention and malice prepense of 
writing my second volume of poems. A humorous expe- 
dition enough as it now appears to me, but then the ka- 
leidoscope of life has shifted a little. Of what rainbow 
hues was it not then composed ! 



My Visit to Lakeland. 79 

"There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, 
The earth, and every common sight 

To me did seem 
Apparelled in celestial light," 

as to my betters. Moreover, they were not meadows but 
mountains, not streams but fine tumbling becks, which I 
had come to dwell among, and being a south-country lad, 
these noble aspects of nature intoxicated me. I think the 
first snow on the fell in October is the most charming 
sight that can greet the eye of a lowlander. I have seen 
it in many an October since, but I am thankful to say it 
still stirs in me something of the old delight — 

*'I see, I see, with joy I see,'' 

albeit my soul is bowed beneath her 

" earthly freight. 
And custom lies upon me with a weight 
Heavy as frost and deep almost as life." 

It was in the early autumn that I first visited Lakeland 
with fifty pounds in my purse, which my dear mother had 
given me to make holiday with (as though all life were 
not then a holiday !), and an introduction to Miss Harriet 
Martineau — '^The Knoll," Ambleside — from Mary Rus- 
sell Mitford in my pocket. 

I had read many of the former lady's books, including 
a later one which was just then* making no little noise in 
the world, to the great detriment of her reputation among 
the orthodox ; but I had never seen even her portrait ; 



* I am almost Sure that it was " just then," but I repeat once and for 
all that my dates are not to be relied upon ; I only profess to give my im- 
pressions, which, however, are distinctly marked enough. 



80 Some Literary Recollections. 

and, though very desirous of her acquaintance, I felt a 
little frightened at her. 

Though I was able to understand that the authoress of 
"Life in the Sick-room" must needs have a loyal and 
gentle heart, whatever appearances might be against her, 
I pictured to myself a tall, masculine woman (rather bony) 
with the air of a lecturer ; and the portrait was about as 
much like the original (^. 6., differed from it in toto) as 
the portraits of others evolved from our consciousness 
generally are. 

On the morning after my arrival in Ambleside I in- 
quired the way to " The Knoll," a charming cottage on an 
eminence, but quite shut out from the road, and looking 
on the Rothay valley, with Loughrigg for a background. 
A residence, I thought, as I stood within its pretty porch, 
much more fitted for a poet than a political economist. 
The bell was answered by a neat serving-maid, who, al- 
though by no means beautiful, had her attractions for me, 
for she had been the subject of certain scientific (mes- 
meric) experiments which had aroused much discussion. 

''Is Miss Martineau at home ?" I asked. 

"She is, sir," said the maid. Fashionable tarradiddles 
were not permitted under that conscientious roof ; but if 
ever a face said "Not at home !" it was the face of that 
domestic. 

" The fact is, sir," she continued, looking at my card, 
and certainly drawing no exceptional deductions from its 
perusal, " Miss Martineau never sees visitors in the morn- 
ing. She writes in her study until dinner-time." 

I could not, in fact, have committed a greater solecism 
had I called on the Archbishop of Canterbury on a Sun- 
day during the hours of divine service. I felt at once 
the full extent of my crime, and with a stammered apol- 



My Hostess, 81 

ogy, and putting my note of introduction into the maid's 
hand, I fled down the little carriage drive abashed. It 
was not, however, I must confess, without a sense of re- 
lief that I thus found my visit to one whom a leading 
organ of popular opinion had designated " a female athe- 
ist of European reputation" postponed ; and when, just as 
I had reached the gate, the handmaiden came flying after 
me, with " My mistress will see you, sir," I wished she had 
not been quite so light-footed. I knew, of course, that I 
was indebted for this unusual favor to some monstrous 
exaggeration of my merits contained in the letter I had 
brought from Swallowfield, which only made the matter 
much worse ; but there was nothing for it but to return 
with the mesmeric maid. 

In the porch stood Miss Martineau herself. A lady of 
middle height, " inclined," as the novelists say, " to embon- 
point," with a smile on her kindly face and her trumpet 
at her ear. She was at that time, I suppose, about fifty 
years of age ; her brown hair had a little gray in it, and 
was arranged with peculiar flatness over a low but broad 
forehead. I don't think she could ever have been pretty, 
but her features were not uncomely, and their expression 
was gentle and motherly. 

"I am so sorry. Miss Martineau," I began; but of 
course I might just as well have addressed the scraper. 
However, she gathered from my face that I was making 
an apology for my untimely visit. "Don't say a word 
about it," she said ; " of course you didn't know that I 
was engaged in the mornings. How should you? A 
poet. Miss Mitford tells me." 

And she held my hand, and shook it with genuine inter- 
est, but also with some amusement — much as a visitor at 
the Zoological might feel on being introduced to a new 

4* 



82 Some Literary Recollections. 

arrival, *^ born in the gardens," of a rare and unusual type. 
I am sure the notion of a young gentleman, not over rich, 
being about to pursue the Art of Poetry as a profession 
tickled her. 

" You are in Lakeland all alone it seems ; that is a claim 
upon my hospitality — even in the morning — which cannot 
be resisted ; not to mention Miss Mitf ord's pressing recom- 
mendation of you to my care. She seems very fond of 
you." 

Then I told her how very kind my friend at Swallow- 
field had been to me. 

" I am glad to hear it," she said, " but it does not at all 
astonish me. She must have a tender nature. What strikes 
one about her as a writer is that one likes her books so 
much more than one's judgment approves of them." 

I could hardly help smiling when I called to mind the 
mitigated admiration which the other literary lady had, 
though in another way, expressed of this one. I was not 
so foolish as to contend about what was, after all, a matter 
of taste, but confined myself to speaking of Miss Mitf ord's 
personal qualities, mode of life, etc., which interested my 
hostess very much. We were by this time in her library 
(though indeed there were book-shelves everywhere at 
" The Knoll "), the view from w^hich naturally extorted my 
admiration. " Yes," she said, " the lookout is charming ; 
it is sometimes indeed so beautiful that I scarcely dare 
withdraw my eyes from it for fear it should melt." 

She said this with great enthusiasm, and with her face 
lit up with pleasure. '' My little home," she went on, " is 
full of pleasant associations. It was the dream of my life 
to build such a house in such a place ; Wordsworth greatly 
admired my choice of situation — he suggested the motto 
* Light, come, visit me ' for my sun-dial yonder." " Then 



WordsworWs Adviee. 83 

you knew him?" I said. It was a foolish question to 
drop into an ear-trumpet, but it was the first instrument 
of the kind I had ever met with, and it disconcerted me 
extremely; her offering it to me was like a church-warden 
stopping with his collecting plate in front of one at 
church, where one would like to be generous in the face 
of the congregation, but cannot find one's purse. More- 
over, the idea of knowing Wordsworth, for whom I had 
an immense reverence, rather overpowered me ; it seemed 
like having a personal acquaintance with Milton. 

'^ Why, yes, of course. He lived only a mile away, at 
Rydal, you know. He was good enough to take an inter- 
est in me when I first came to live here, and gave me" 
(here she smiled) '^much excellent advice. He said that 
I must make up my mind to be lionized. ^People will 
come to see you — though of course not so many as come 
to see me — whether you will or no : strangers, tourists, 
and all sorts. If they are such as you must entertain, give 
them tea ; but if they want meat, let them go to the inn.' 
It was very wise and prudent advice, but you shall take 
an early dinner with me to-day for all that." 

I was delighted, of course ; I was not the least afraid 
of my hostess by this time, but felt that I was encroach- 
ing on her hours of work, and said so. 

"It is true you have made me idle," she said, "but it 
is such a lovely morning that I forgive you. Let us come 
into the garden." We went out accordingly. " My friend 
Mr. Greg* says that when it is fine in the Lake country 
one should never work ; but though there are so many 
wet days, I cannot afford to be idle." 



* The author of the " Creed of Christendom,'* then living at Bowness, on 
Lake Windermere. 



84 Some Literary Recollections. 

I praised the freshness of her little lawn. 

"Yes," she said, "but you have no idea of the trouble 
it took me to get the turf. You would think, perhaps, 
with these green mountains so near, that it was a com- 
mon commodity, but the fact is, where once it is taken away 
it never grows again ; the place is left bare. I could get 
no turf in fact for love or money, and was at my wit's end 
for it, when a very curious circumstance happened. One 
morning I found a cart-load of turf lying on the gravel 
yonder, where it had been pitchforked over the wall. 
A bit of paper was pinned to a slab of it, with these 
words written on it in a vile scrawl : ^ To Harriet Mar- 

tineau, from a lover of her Forest and Game Law tales 

A poacher.'* I dare say it was stolen, but that dishon- 
est tribute to my merits always gave me great pleasure." 

We continued our tour of her little territory, and in- 
spected the stall-fed cows, which were themselves not un- 
known to fame, as having been subjected to the influences 
of mesmerism. 

For my own part I have never believed in these mar- 
vels. I entertain a Philistine scepticism upon the subject 
of most " isms," and at that time was very much inclined 
to laugh at them in a disrespectful manner ; but I never 
laughed at Harriet Martineau, though often with her. 
There was a tender as well as earnest gravity about her 
when expressing her views that nipped ridicule in*the bud. 

* I subsequently heard that on the morning after the event in question 
Miss Martineau went over to " Fox Howe " (the house Dr. Arnold had built 
under Loughrigg) to narrate the event. Archbishop Whately, who hated 
her, was a guest there at the time ; he did not join in the general admi- 
ration of the poacher's conduct ; he only shook his head. Some one pri- 
vately inquired of him whether he doubted the genuineness of the letter. 
" Doubt it ? of course I doubt it ; the woman wrote it herself." 



An Unfortunate Mistake. 85 

Her belief in spiritualism was indeed a severe trial to 
me, but as she took the epidemic in a very favorable 
form — " I believe in spiritualism," she used to say, " but 
not in the Spirits," just as my other friend took her Po- 
litical Economical tales without the political economy — 
so much of consent to it as arises from silence was pos- 
sible for me to give. Unlike Miss Mitf ord, who, without 
altering her opinions one jot, was ready at once to agree 
to differ. Miss Martineau revelled in argument, and from 
an early period of life I have had the prudence to ab- 
stain from argument with ladies of whatever rank or age 
or genius. Only once or twice in my long intimacy with 
the lady of "The Knoll" did I ever get into hot water with 
her. One occasion was very nearly fatal to me, when I 
made an unfortunate mistake, which, painful and embar- 
rassing as it was to me at the time, I can never think of 
without half choking with laughter. In her study was 
the portrait of a scientific gentleman she greatly honored, 
but who in my humble judgment influenced her mind for 
evil, and injured her reputation as a writer and thinker 
exceedingly. She asked me one day of whom the picture 
(to me unknown) reminded me. It was a striking coun- 
tenance enough, full of restrained enthusiasm; but, as it 
happened, I remembered no one like it. " Look again," 
she said, "you surely must see the resemblance." 

I hazarded " Robespierre." 

It was most unfortunate, for, as it turned out, she saw 
a most striking likeness in the portrait to the founder of 
the Christian religion. 

" That," as Anthony Trollope says more than once in 
his autobiography, "was a bad moment for me." 

A ludicrous incident fortunately happened the same 
day, which restored her good-humor. I had by that time 



86 Some Literary Recollections. 

got so well accustomed to her ear-trumpet that I began 
to look upon it as a part of herself. It was lying on the 
table a good distance away from her, and having some 
remark to make to her, I inadvertently addressed it to 
the instrument instead of her ear. Heavens, how we 
laughed ! She had a very keen sense of fun, of which, 
however, she was quite unconscious. I remember her 
pointing out to me a passage in some leading article in 
the Times which amused her excessively. It was upon 
the subject of protection, and the country gentlemen were 
depicted as foreseeing the nation dependent for its corn 
upon " the Romans, the Colossians, and the Thessaloni- 
ans." " How I wish I could write like that," she said, 
" but unhappily I have no humor." She could not create 
it, indeed, but she could appreciate it very fully. 

No one who reads these recollections can be more con- 
scious than myself that they are very rambling. I have 
already wandered a long way from the day of my first 
introduction to ''The Knoll." As it is difficult to "get 
on" with some people, to make any way into their minds 
and hearts, so that we remain as much outside them af- 
ter a twelvemonth's acquaintance as after the first twelve 
hours, so there are others with whom intimacy comes on 
so soon that it is difficult to replace one's self in " the first 
position " of acquaintance. This is one of the reasons 
why a diary is so indispensable to an autobiography. 

Among the many foolish things that the cuckoos of 
the human race repeat, with the idea that it has the wis- 
dom of a proverb, is the remark that before a traveller 
can describe a place to others he must have lived there 
and known it thoroughly, whereas the fact is just the re- 
verse ; after a day or two, or even less, the first impres- 
sions (which are the very thing he wishes to convey) van- 



Impression. 87 

ish from his mind. So it is with a new acquaintance 
when he becomes our friend ; his salient points are lost 
through our becoming familiar with them. I feel this 
very much in describing Harriet Martineau, whose friend- 
ship I had the privilege to enjoy for twenty years. My 
general impression of her is very different, I find, from 
the particular impression which she left on others who 
only saw her once or twice. 

For example, with respect to that ear-trumpet (which 
had a great public reputation in its time), I have heard 
stories from persons as eminent as its possessor herself, 
which, though humorous and interesting enough, seem to 
me without foundation. Her enemies looked upon it as 
a weapon of defence. 

It was in fact literally used in that fashion on one 
occasion. A right of way was in dispute at one time 
through certain fields (a portion, I think, of Rydal Park) 
in the neighborhood of Ambleside, and the owner closed 
them to the public. Miss Martineau, though a philan- 
thropist on a large scale, could also (which is not so com- 
mon with that class) pick up a pin for freedom's sake, 
and play the part of a village Hampden. When the rest 
of her neighbors shrank from this contest with the lord of 
the manor, she took up the cudgels for them, and " the 
little tyrant of those fields withstood." She alone, not 
indeed with "bended bow and quiver full of arrows," 
but with her ear-trumpet and umbrella, took her walk 
through the forbidden land as usual. Whereupon the 
wicked lord (so runs the story, though I never heard it 
from her own lips) put a young bull into the field. He 
attacked the trespasser, or at all events prepared to at- 
tack her, but the indomitable lady faced him and stood 
her ground. She was quite capable of it, for she had the 



88 Some Literary Recollections. 

courage of her opinions (which was saying a good deal), 
and at all events, whether from astonishment at her pre- 
sumption, or terror of the ear-trumpet (to which of course 
he had nothing to say), the bull in the end withdrew his 
opposition (drew in his horns) and suffered her to pursue 
her way in peace. I wish I could add that she had the 
good-fortune of another patriotic lady "to take the tax 
away," but I am afraid the wicked lord succeeded in his 
designs. More than once, however, I have had pointed 
out to me over the wall — for the bull was still there — the 
little eminence wheref rom, with no weapon but her ear- 
trumpet (for she had her umbrella over her head all the 
time to keep the sun off), this dauntless lady withstood 
the horrid foe. 

A great philosopher (but who did not share her tenets) 
used to insist upon it that Miss Martineau could always 
hear when she liked, and only used her trumpet when 
she wanted to hear ; whereas at other times she laid it 
down as a protection against argument. Nothing could 
be more untrue, though I admit that she had degrees of 
deafness ; it varied with her general health. 

Again, the author of the " Vestiges of Creation " used 
to contend that Miss Martineau never wanted her ear- 
trumpet at all, not because she could hear without it, but 
because she did not care to hear what anybody had to 
tell her. He said to me once, in his dry, humorous way, 
"Your friend Miss Martineau has been giving me the 
address in town where she gets all her ear - trumpets. 
Why, good heavens ! what does she want of them ? 
Does she mean to say that she ever wore one ear-trumpet 
out in all her life in listening to what anybody had to 
say?" 

She was no doubt somewhat masterful in argument 



Motherly Qualities. 89 

(which is probably all that he meant to imply), but I al- 
ways found her very ready to listen, and especially to 
any tale of woe or hardship which it lay in her power 
to remedy. Her conversation, indeed, was by no means 
monologue, and rarely have I known a social companion 
more bright and cheery ; but her talk, when not engaged 
in argument, was, which is unusual in a woman, very an- 
ecdotal. She had known more interesting and eminent 
persons than most men, and certainly than any woman, of 
her time ; the immense range of her writings — political, 
religious, and social — had caused her to make acquaint- 
ance with people of the most different opinions and of all 
ranks, while among the large circle of her personal ac- 
quaintance her motherly qualities, her gentleness, and (on 
delicate domestic questions) her good judgment, made her 
the confidante of many persons, especially young peo- 
ple, which enlarged her knowledge of human life to an 
extraordinary degree. I never knew a woman whose nat- 
ure was more essentially womanly than that of Harriet 
Martineau, or one who was more misunderstood in that re- 
spect by the world at large. She had excellent friends in 
her neighborhood (in particular the accomplished family 
at '' Fox Howe "), but those who knew her by reputation 
were afraid of her. At that time especially she had flut- 
tered the doves in the conventional cote by the publica- 
tion of the ^'Atkinson Letters" very considerably, and I 
found myself looked upon with some disfavor as her con- 
stant visitor. She was supposed, I think, to be initiating 
me into the mysteries of Atheism ; whereas, unless she 
was invited to do so, I never heard her utter one word to 
any human being with respect to her peculiar opinions. 
It was believed, however, that she was compassing sea 
and land for proselytes, and people were warned against 



90 Some Literary Recollections. 

her from the pulpit. There was even some correspond- 
ence in the local paper as to the impropriety of her being 
buried in the church-yard ; which was, to say the least of 
it, premature. 

" I suggest the quarry," she once said to me, with a 
humorous twinkle of her kind eyes ; " but Mr. Atkinson 
says that I should spoil the quarry." She was too used 
to unpopularity to be disturbed by it, and cared more for 
what simple, ignorant, but honest folks said about her, 
than for what was printed by those who should have 
known better. " When you have come to my time of 
life, and have obtained a reputation (as I hope you will)," 
she would say, "you will know how little it matters." 

I have learned that lesson by this time ; but, ah me ! 
what would I not give to have those halcyon days again, 
when " the hebdomadal conf errors of Immortality," as 
poor James White* used to call them, could make one 
wince in every nerve with an unfavorable critique ! 

The only personal reference to her in print, save her 
brother's well-known essay against her in the National 
Remeio^ that I ever knew to annoy Miss Martineau was 
an article in (I think) the Leader, It appeared at all 
events in some periodical of the kind to which she had 
herself contributed papers {Flash of Memory^ " Yes, the 
'Letters from the Mountains ' in the Leader "), and there 
was, therefore, something especially disloyal and ungrace- 
ful in its publication. It pointed out that, since she had 
declared her disbelief in a future state, her testimony 
would not be received in a court of justice, and that, con- 

* The Rev. James White, author of " Nights at Mess, " Landmarks of 
English History," and of the " King of the Commons," and other fine his- 
torical plays in which Phelps appeared with great success ; the pleasant- 
est parson that ever filled (or I should rather say avoided) a pulpit. 



"The Visitors:' 91 

sequently, if any burglar broke into " The Knoll " and mal- 
treated her, he would do so, so far as she was concerned, 
with impunity. 

The article was no doubt written in the cause of civil 
and religious liberty, and with a disregard of personal 
considerations which, had they affected the writer, would 
have been greatly to his credit ; but under the circum- 
stances it was brutal enough, and Miss Martineau felt it 
deeply. 

To my kind friend at "The Knoll" I was indebted not 
only for my introduction to Lakeland — for in her com- 
pany, as will be narrated, I explored the whole of it — but 
even for the selection of a lodging. She was as good an 
authority upon small practical matters as though she had 
passed her life in attending to domestic affairs. In her 
youth she had been famous for her plain needle- work, and 
made not only her own clothes, but even her shoes ; and 
when from illness she had ceased to write, she applied 
herself to Berlin wool-work, in which she attained a great 
proficiency. She took a great interest in things about her, 
knew something of all the lodgings m the neighborhood, 
the extent of their accommodation, which afforded the 
best view, and in most cases even their terms. At that 
time tastes were more simple, and persons who, like Dr. 
Syntax, came in search of the picturesque, were content 
with cleanliness and homeliness. Nevertheless, the whole 
district even then laid itself out for "the visitors." The 
irruption of the cheap trippers which Wordsworth feared 
(though he did write " The Excursion ") had not yet come, 
but in summer and autumn the district was thronged with 
strangers, who generally made a considerable stay in it. 
"When any of these were clergymen, the local divines got 
them to preach for them, and I remember at Bowness 



92 Some Literary Recollections. 

Church a curious incident arising from this circumstance. 
There had been a good deal of dry weather in the South, 
and an Oxford man who occupied the pulpit began to 
read the prayer for rain, when the clerk pulled at the 
skirts of his surplice. 

"You mustn't read that, sir," he whispered ; "we don't 
want it." 

" But it's a prayer for a good harvest, my man," reason- 
ed the minister. 

"That's just it; the visitors are our harvest, and we 
want none of your rain." 

I need not saiy that this occurrence amused Miss Marti- 
neau (who had her own views about the rainfall) not a 
little. 

" As to lodgings," she said, " though I am sorry to send 
you so far afield, there is nothing more suitable for your 
purpose " (and I was sorry to see she smiled, for I knew 
that it was the idea of my coming to Lakeland to write 
poetry that was again tickling her ; it seemed like open- 
ing a small coal-store in the heart of Newcastle) "than 
the farm-house at High Close. It is an out-of-the-way 
spot, but commands more charming views than any house 
save one* in Westmoreland. 

Upon this spot has since been built a lordly pleasure- 
house, with grounds to match; but when I lodged there it 
was a very unambitious dwelling, with a noble sycamore 
for its sole garden ornament, and a bull that loved its 
shade, and made the composition of verses under it a 



* She was always most precise and particular as to the facts within her 
personal knowledge. The exception she referred to was a certain house 
in Troutbeck, where the visitors were not its harvest, and where the prin- 
cipal windows looked point-blank into its farm-yard. 



Deafness vs. Blindness. 93 

most hazardous operation. The house was on the summit 
of Red Bank, between Grasmere and the Langdales, and 
in addition to the whole stretch of the latter valley, with 
its well-known " Pikes," looked forth on Diana's looking- 
glass (as Loughrigg Tarn was then called) and Winder- 
mere. Many a time did Miss Martineau bring friends to 
see that view while I was there, and dilate on it to them 
with ever-fresh admiration ; but I am afraid I had very 
little to offer them in the way of refreshment beyond 
what Wordsworth had recommended. To herself, how- 
ever, eating and drinking mattered nothing ; she had no 
sense of taste whatever. " Once," she told me, with a 
smile, when I was expressing my pity for this deprivation 
of hers, " I tasted a leg of mutton, and it was delicious. 
I was going out, as it happened, that day, to dine with 
Mr. Marshal at Coniston, and I am ashamed to say that I 
looked forward to the pleasures of the table with consid- 
erable eagerness ; but nothing came of it — the gift was 
withdrawn as suddenly as it came." The sense of smell 
was also denied her, as it was to Wordsworth ; in his case, 
too, curiously enough, it was vouchsafed to him, she told 
me, upon one occasion only. ^' He once smelled a bean- 
field, and thought it heaven." 

It has often struck me that this deprivation of the ex- 
ternal senses (for she lost her hearing very early) may 
have had considerable influence in forming Miss Marti- 
neau's mental characteristics ; but if it turned her atten- 
tion to studies more or less abstruse, and which are sel- 
dom pursued by those of her own sex, it certainly never 
'' hardened" her. Her heart was as kind and gentle as 
though the song of the birds and the sigh of the sea had 
fallen not only upon open ears, but upon ears attuned to 
them, while her patience when conversation was going on 



94 Some Literary Becollections. 

about her, in which she was so well fitted to join, but 
could not, was touching to witness. 

She could never understand why deaf people should so 
often be considered morose and impatient, while those 
who were afflicted with blindness enjoy a reputation for 
the contrary virtues. An acquaintance of hers once ex- 
plained it to her in a manner entirely satisfactory to him- 
self. "Blind people, my dear madam, being entirely de- 
pendent upon their fellow-creatures, are obliged, for their 
own sakes, to be always civil and agreeable to everybody." 

" I see," she answered, withdrawing her trumpet from 
her ear (to show the conversation was closed) and press- 
ing one tooth tightly on her lip, as her habit was when 
displeased ; " a very charitable view." 

Once only did I ever see her exhibit any active indig- 
nation. It was soon after her translation of Comte ap- 
peared; all the proceeds of which — and considering the 
nature of the work they were considerable — she sent, by- 
the-bye, to that philosopher, whose affairs were at that 
time in a far from flourishing condition. In proportion 
to her admiration of his theories she despised those of the 
metaphysicians who '' did not know what they thought," 
and at this inopportune epoch a metaphysician of celebrity 
happened to call upon her. She asked him to luncheon, 
and in ignorance, I believe, of his hostess having had any- 
thing to do with Comte whatever, he blundered upon the 
dangerous topic. I gave him a hint of his peril, but it is 
very difficult to stop a metaphysician, or perhaps I was 
beneath his notice. At all events, he delivered quite a 
lecture against Comte and his creed. When he had quite 
done. Miss Martineau put this question to him with chill- 
ing gravity: 

" Pray, sir, have you ever read Comte?" 



Cribhage, 95 

The wretched metaphysician changed color, and stam- 
mered out, "Well, yes— at least I have dipped into him." 

"Dipped into him !" exclaimed Miss Martineau, with 
sublime contempt (which reminded me, nevertheless, of 
Mr. Swiveller's condemnation of the practice of sipping 
beer). "No, sir, you have only dipped into some review 
of him. When you have looked at that shelf yonder," 
and she pointed with her trumpet to the bookcase behind 
her, " you may then say, for the first time, that you have 
seen Comte's works." 

I am obliged, for the most part, to tell what I remem- 
ber of Miss Martineau in place of letting her speak for 
herself (which would be far better), for a certain reason. 
I have very many letters from her upon all sorts of sub- 
jects, written, as she spoke, with excessive frankness ; 
but she had a great dislike to the publication of her pri- 
vate correspondence. It is a great pity, for she discussed 
people and things that have an interest for everybody 
with a personal knowledge of them that is most unusual. 
I regret this veto the more, since but for it I could cull 
many an extract illustrative of a side of her character the 
least understood and appreciated — namely, its tenderness 
and domesticity. A year after my first introduction to 
her I came to Ambleside a married man, and my first 
child was born there, in the winter. Her kindness to my 
wife and myself I shall never forget ; I went in and out 
of " The Knoll " as I pleased, like a cat which has a hole cut 
in the door for it ; and her library was not only placed 
entirely at my service while on the premises, but I was 
permitted to take home with me whatever books I want- 
ed. In return, I had the pleasure of teaching her whist 
and cribbage, which she enjoyed excessively, though I 
am bound to say that at the former game she was not 



96 Some Literary Recollections. 

A 1, or rather " Major A 1." Like Metternich, she took to 
it too late in life, but at cribbage she rivalled Sarah Battle. 
A Mr. Shepherd, an excellent fellow, the Ambleside doc- 
tor, was usually our fourth, and many a merry evening 
have we passed together. I think I so far undermined 
her principles, which were fixed against gambling, as to 
induce her to play for penny points. 

Miss Martineau was very fond of my dear wife, and 
anxious that we should come and stay with her when the 
advent of the child was expected, so that it should be 
born in her house. This, however, we did not do. She 
sent a message to our cottage that December when the 
event took place : 

" I send to the back-door (for quiet's sake) for a bulle- 
tin, and shall continue to do so instead of coming, so long 
as quiet is necessary. Oh ! your news makes me so hap- 
py. Your little Christmas rosel I am glad it was a 
clear, bright morning when it began to blow ! How hap- 
py your dear wife must be — only not too happy to sleep, 
I hope. My dear love to her the next time you see her, 
[A little hint of the necessity for rest.] Come here, you 
know, as much as you like, and make any use of me and 
mme." 

The child, who was named after her, she never forgot, 
but for many years continued to write to her upon her 
birthday in terms comprehensible to her small wits, and 
always sending her some book suited to her age. Here 
is one of her notes to her at six years old, when we were 
living in Scotland : 

"Dear Tiny, — I am so pleased to have your book- 
marker. I shall use it every day, and I dare say I shall 
think of you every day. Only last night I had to tear a 



Xove of Children. 97 

piece of paper to mark my place in a big book I am read- 
ing, and I am now going to put in your marker. It is 
very nicely worked, and I am much obliged to you. Here 
is such a beautiful day. I hope you are all going out 
into the sunshine, if it is as fine at Edinburgh. We have 
seen no lambs yet, and I am glad they have not come out 
while the weather was so stormy. A relative of mine, 
who has a farm, lost nine lambs and their mothers in one 
night, and forty more lambs within a w^eek, though all 
possible care was taken of them. The lightning and the 
hail and the cold storms killed the poor little lambs, even 
in their house. We have no chickens yet, but there are 
so many eggs that I dare say we shall have plenty by- 
and-by. Maria picks a few primroses in the hedges now, 
and the crocuses in the garden look very gay. 

"So you are going to live in London. But you must 
never forget Edinburgh. If you should live to be old, 
you must still remember Arthur's Seat and the fair city. 
Give your sisters each a kiss for me, and believe me your 
affectionate friend, Harriet Martineau." 

She could write this letter to a child, though her hands 
were at that time full of work and her heart of sorrow. 

"X has failed," she writes to me about the same 

date. " There goes, I suppose, a great lump of my earn- 
ings, but I can't care at present for that, but only for him." 

As regards money-matters, I suppose no woman in the 
world ever regarded them from the same point of view. 
It is well known that a pension was offered to her by three 
Prime - ministers in succession — Earl Grey, Lord John 
Russell, and Mr. Gladstone — which (like Caesar) she " did 
thrice refuse," it being against her principles to burden 
the State with any such obligation. And yet she was en- 

5 



98 Some Literary Recollections. 

tirely dependent upon that reed, the pen, for subsistence. 
She liked to have things neat and comely about her, but 
her tastes were simple ; she loved the country and its 
homely ways. In writing about an early book of mine, 
called "Meliboeus in London," she speaks of town life 
being very ^^ dreary " to her : 

" Rural folk cannot, I am sure, be too thankful for their 
particular privileges. Zfeel this every day, long as it is 
since I was a Londoner, and well as I liked my sort of 
town life (with St. James's Park for a garden). The least 
desirable, I suppose, is life in a provincial town, by which 
both sorts of privileges are lost. I would not for much 
be a Londoner now (April) nor till after October. . . . 
Nevertheless, as is evident from your letters, Londoners 
do not think their life dreary. One of the curious things 
about them is the way in which old and sickly people go 
on craving for the same amusements that other people 
have. I know an old lady far above seventy who cannot re- 
member anything for an hour, and can hardly stand, who is 
expecting her full share of pleasure from the Exhibition." 

This must have been, of course, in 1862. For many sum- 
mers after my first acquaintance with Miss Martineau I 
always spent a month or two in her neighborhood, as much 
from regard for her as from my love for Lakeland, and 
she became very intimate with me and mine. Neverthe- 
less, owing to her keen intelligence, I found it difficult 
to realize her extreme deafness,* and used often to ad- 

* Our intercourse reminded me of Tenn3'Son*s lines, for 

" Thought leaped out to wed with thought, 
Ere thought could wed itself with speech ;" 

or of Pope's, from whom, perhaps, he unconsciously echoed the idea : 

" When thought meets thought, ere from the lips it part." 



The Tobacco Cure. 99 

dress her when she was not prepared for it. She never 
lost her sense of the absurdity of this practice, and I can 
see the laughter in her kind eyes now as she snatched up 
her trumpet. She loved a good-natured pleasantry, even 
at her own expense. On one occasion when she was be- 
wailing her dioability for music, of which she had been so 
intensely fond, I reminded her that she was better pro- 
vided for in that way than most people, having both a 
drum and a trumpet always in her ear ; and twenty years 
afterwards I note, in one of her letters, a pleasant allusion 
to this little joke. 

The degree of deafness, as I have said, varied ; and she 
tried all sorts of remedies. No one who knew her would 
suspect her of anything "fast" or unfeminine, but, under 
the advice of some scientific person or another, she tried 
smoking. I had the privilege of providing her privately 
with some very mild cigars, and many and many a sum- 
mer night have we sat together for half an hour or so in 
her porch at " The Knoll " smoking. 

If some of the good people, her neighbors, had known 
of that^ it would, we agreed, have really given them some- 
thing to talk about. She only tried this remedy, if I re- 
member right, for a few months, but she fancied it had 
a beneficial effect upon her hearing. For my part, I en- 
joyed nothing so much as these evenings. It is my fixed 
opinion that the conversation of even a dullard is mitiga- 
ted and rendered tolerable by tobacco — he can't talk long 
without letting his cigar out, for one thing, and there is 
less temptation to him, when he has a cigar in his mouth, 
to talk at all, for another — while all that is thoughtful in 
a man is brought to the surface by that benign influence, 
and one hears him at his best. ^ 

I need not say, then, what a charming companion. 



100 Some Literary Recollections, 

under these favorable circumstances, was Harriet Marti- 
neaii. 

It was about this time, I think, that, chancing to be in 
London, she consulted Mr. Toynbee, the aurist, upon her 
ailment. He did her little or no good, but was very kind 
and gracious to her, which (it not being a usual habit 
with him, as I have heard) made a great impression upon 
her. She was so pleased indeed with the interest he had 
taken in her case, that she resolved to leave him, by tes- 
tamentary bequest, her ears. She announced this inten- 
tion in the presence of Mr. Shepherd, who, to my infinite 
amazement, observed, "But, my dear madam, you can't 
do that : it will make your other legacy worthless." The 
fact was, in the interests of science. Miss Martineau had 
already left her head to the Phrenological Society. I 
asked the doctor how he came to know that. "Oh," he 
said, " she told me so herself ; she has left ten pounds in 
her codicil to me for cutting it off." 

There was nothing, of course, improper in such a be- 
quest, but it was certainly very unusual ; and I never 
afterwards felt quite comfortable, even at cribbage, in 
the society of the testatrix and her doctor. I don't think 
I could play cribbage with a lady upon whom I had un- 
dertaken to perform such an operation, but then I am 
neither a philosopher nor a man of science. As it hap- 
pened, the doctor died before his patient, who subse- 
quently altered her intentions altogether. I never, at 
least, heard of their being carried out. 

On the rare holidays in which she indulged herself, Miss 
Martineau delighted in little excursions, and especially in 
introducing her visitors to the beauties of her beloved 
Lakeland. With two of these, whom I will call Messrs. 
A and B (not so much from delicacy as because I 



A Curious Circumstance. 101 

have forgotten their names),! once went round the Lang- 
dales in her company, when rather a curious circumstance 
happened. The rain, as is not uncommon in that country, 
came on very heavily, and we had to close the curtains of 
the car ; then, in default of anything better to do, she pro- 
posed that each should write down on a piece of paper 
their favorite incident in fiction. I forget those which 

she and Mr. A selected ; but my own choice was that 

scene in " Ivanhoe " where the disinherited knight enters 
the lists of Ashby - de - la - Zouche the challengers have 
carried all before them, and the populace (who hate them) 
good - naturedly recommend him to touch the shield of 
Ralph de Vipont, as " he has the less sure seat." Not- 
withstanding this warning, he " strikes with the sharp 
end of his spear [to show that he means business] the 
shield of Brian de Bois Guilbert till it rang again." 

Mr. B selected the self-same incident, which we all 

thought not a little surprising. 

It was in the third or fourth summer of our acquaint- 
ance that Miss Martineau undertook to write her " Guide " 
to the Lake district ; it was very literally a labor of love, 
nor did the pleasure to be derived from it come, I think, 
short of her expectations. We made up a little party 
together, and " did " the district (with which, however, 
we were most of us already acquainted) in ten days or 
so. Besides ourselves there were C — — (a barrister) and 

his wife, D , a clergyman, and E , a senior classic 

of Cambridge ; and very merry we all were. We jour- 
neyed in a sort of covered wagonette, and sometimes over 
roads that were scarcely adapted for wagons. We were 
once caught in a mountain mist above the Duddon valley, 
and, after much wandering round and round, found our- 
selves in the same place from which we started. "I wish 



102 Some Literary Recollections. 

we had brought a compass," cried Miss Martineau ; and 
when somebody suggested that we had "fetched " one, I 
never saw an elderly lady more moved to mirth. 

The most humorous incident of this tour, however, was, 
by the nature of the case, outside her perceptions. We 
had put up for the night at a little inn at Strands, near 
Wastwater, where the accommodation was but scanty. 

On retiring to her couch, Mrs. C became conscious of 

some evil odor. " It is terrible to think of, John," she 
said to her husband, " and I am bound to say it loohs clean 
enough, but can it be the bed ?" And from the bed, 
though it was as white as snow, the smell certainly came. 
Though as a rule Mrs. C objected to smoking, she ad- 
jured her husband to light his pipe and puff the smoke in 
all directions ; but, as Mark Twain observes in a case not 
wholly dissimilar, this device only seemed to awaken the 
smell's "ambition ;" it grew worse and worse till it be- 
came unbearable. "I'll go to Miss Martineau's room," 

cried Mrs. G , in despair, " and ask her whether she 

happens to have a bottle of scent." 

It was a proof of the utter disorganization to which 
they had both arrived that she proceeded to do this ; for 
why should a lady who had no sense of smell encumber 
herself with a scent - bottle ? Moreover, though she 
knocked at Miss Martineau's door repeatedly, it was of 
course labor thrown away, since she couldn't hear her. 
Then Mr. C went to D 's room upon the same er- 
rand. He found him sitting up in bed with a silk night- 
cap on, sniffing as though he would sniff his head off. 

" Do you smell anything ?" inquired C , superflu- 
ously. 

" I should think I did ! I have a horrible suspicion it's 
the bed." 



Letting it Leak Out. 103 

The fact was that the beds, which were ^^ home-made," 
had been stuffed with feathers, the quills of which had 
been insufficiently dried ; they gave us a bad night, but 
formed a very mirthful topic the next day; indeed, I don't 
think I ever laughed so much as upon that journey. 

The economy with which the trip had been effected 
(for we had lived everywhere on the best) very much as- 
tonished Miss Martineau, who congratulated C (who 

had " financed " us) upon his arrangements. " I shall cer- 
tainly go over the ground again," she said, "next sum- 
mer." 

" I wouldn't do that if I were you," said the man of 
law ; " these things lose by repetition." 

"But the cost of the pleasure is so moderate," she 
argued. 

" Well, it mightn't be so cheap next time. I took care, 
you see, to let it leak out that you were on a professional 
tour, and I think it had an effect upon the charges," 

I had rarely seen Miss Martineau so indignant. 

" Then you have spoiled a most important item of my 
book, sir." 

I had some difficulty in restoring peace between them; 
for the man of law would argue that he had not been 
writing a guide - book, but financing the company, and 
was bound to do it to the best of his ability, independent 
of all private considerations. I need hardly say that he 
has since risen to great eminence in his profession. 

Under Miss Martineau's roof I met at various times 
many remarkable persons, with most of whom I have since 
been on more or less intimate terms ; to her I owe my 
first introduction to Matthew Arnold — " looking," as old 
Crabb Robinson described him at that time, " disgustingly 
young and handsome." He is happily still with us, but 



104 Some Literary RecolleGtions, 

the world has lost his brother William, one of the kindli- 
est and brightest of men. I had been delighted with his 
fine Indian novel, "Oakfield," but the expectations it had 
aroused were fully realized in him. His appearance even 
at that time suggested delicacy of constitution, but he was 
very active and energetic. I took one expedition with 
him in winter on foot through Borrowdale. We talked of 
everything, from politics to sonnets, and agreed on most, 
but differed very widely upon the merits of the monito- 
rial system. I had been for some time at the Military 
Academy at Woolwich, where at that date the system 
(with " corporals " in place of " monitors ") was in full flow, 
with far from beneficial results. My companion, on the 
other hand, had of course an hereditary respect for it. At 
the time in question some letters were appearing in a Lon- 
don newspaper upon the subject, with leading articles for 
commentaries, of which, as he knew. Miss Martineau w^as 
the writer. '^ She knows nothing whatever about it," he 
said. 

"But, my dear fellow," I argued, "there are the let- 
ters." 

" It is my firm belief," he answered, " that she writes 
the letters too. You may smile," he continued, " but I 
assure you nothing is more common. It is a mere news- 
paper device for the dead season. No one w^ho has ever 
been at a public-school of any kind — " 

" My dear Arnold," I put in, " it is I who wrote those 
letters." 

"Not really?" 

" Yes, upon my honor." 

How we both roared with laughter ! I doubt whether 
those eternal hills, at all events, with their snow shrouds 
on them, had ever echoed such mirth. 



A Confession. 105 

It was to Harriet Martineau that I owed my first intro- 
duction to heavy-metalled literature. She tells us in her 
autobiography that, with the exception of Mrs. Marsh's 
"Two Old Men's Tales," "I have never once, so far as I 
remember, succeeded in getting a manuscript published 
for anybody. This has been a matter of great concern 
to me, but such is the fact. ... I have striven hard on 
behalf of others, but without the slightest success. 

Notwithstanding this disclaimer, I cannot but think I 
was somewhat indebted to her for my appearance, at 
what was certainly an unusually early age, in the col- 
umns of the 'Westminster Review, The article was called 
" Ballads of the People," and I got twenty guineas for it, 
which seemed to me a princely remuneration. 

There is a great deal of misconception as to what can 
be done for the literary neophyte, as I, alas ! (since in an 
evil hour I wrote a certain paper upon the Literary Call- 
ing in the Nineteenth Century review) have good cause 
to know. Unless a young gentleman has a natural call- 
ing (not only a fancy, or even a taste) to the literary pro- 
fession, ''not all the king's horses and all the king's men" 
can set him up in it. By some improper exertion of pri- 
vate friendship it is possible indeed he may get something 
into print, and that — the extreme limit of outside assist- 
ance — is necessarily the end of him. His hash is settled, 
and generally not without some sauce piquante of unfa- 
vorable criticism. But if a young fellow has genuine lit- 
erary talent, there is no doubt that his success may be 
hastened by friendly hands ; even the praise of those who 
are well qualified to judge of such matters is of immense 
assistance to him. It is not so much the whip that makes 
the mare of literature to go, as the encouraging pat upon 
the back ; nor is the sieve of corn held in front of the 

5* 



106 Some Literary Becollections. 

steed, who has once had his nose in it, without an exhila- 
rating effect. Those twenty guineas, for example, from 
the Westmi7ister, at that time, were to me as good as five 
hundred ten years afterwards. That they came to me so 
early was certainly owing, indirectly, to my old friend at 
Swallowfield, and I told her so by letter. She wrote back 
to me, racked by pain and exhausted by weakness, from 
what was fated to be her death-bed : " Ah! I wish I could 
have done a twentieth part of the good I wish you." 
And a few days afterwards she was at rest. 

Little did I think that in a very brief time my other 
friend, and I may say Miss Mitford's also — for the two 
ladies had kept up a warm and kindly correspondence — 
was destined to receive her Nunc dimittiSy not indeed, as 
it turned out, from life, but from the world in which she 
took so active a part. Miss Martineau had been ailing 
for some time, and on going to Loudon for advice, re- 
ceived the news that she was suffering from an incura- 
ble malady- — the sentence, in fact, was Death; and though 
it was deferred for many years, she never tasted of the 
old life again. She still continued to write for her news- 
paper (the Daily JVeics), but for nothing else. " It will in- 
terest you to know," she writes (November 9, 1865), " that 
my very last bit of authorship is the article on Convict 
Life, in the Edinburgh, The editor will not believe it 
is the last; but it isP 

Throughout the invalid existence which she was 
doomed henceforth to lead, she was resigned and cheer- 
ful ; not a word of complaint, though she suffered much 
pain, fell from her lips or from her pen. But she never 
recovered her old spirits. Our simple junketings and 
merriment were over. Year after year I used to come to 
see her, and every time there was a distinct decay of 



Last Hours, 107 

strength. Her intelligence remained as keen as ever, 
and her interest in the affairs of the world from which 
she was cut off ; but to me, with the remembrance of 
other days in my mind, those visits were very sad. 

At first I was admitted at the same familiar door, on the 
same terms as usual; then only an hour's interview was 
allowed by the doctor's orders ; then only half an hour. 
She wrote to me, however, though even letter- writing had 
become toilsome to her, pretty frequently. Her own in- 
creasing ailments were dismissed with a word or two, 
but all that pertained to those she loved was interesting 
to her, even to quite trivial details. 

" I was rejoiced to hear from Mr. W ," she says in her 

last letter, " of your dear wife looking so well. My love 
to her. So you are getting bald ? Never mind so long 
as it is you, not she. If men will shave all their lives, in- 
stead of wearing their proper beards, they must not com- 
plain of growing bald. A mile and a half (isn't it?) of 
hair shaved off in a man's lifetime may well make him 
bald. . . . Oh yes, I am worse — much. It has been a ter- 
rible summer for pain. Seven weeks without one min- 
ute's intermission ! That is over now ; a great increase 
of opiates, and now the cold (the letter is dated Novem- 
ber), have caused a considerable rally for the present. . . . 
Love to Tiny [the worker of the book-marker so many 
years ago] and all of you, from your affectionate old 
friend." 



108 Some Literary Becollections, 



Chapter Y. 

THE BROTHERS CHAMBERS. — ALEXANDER RUSSEL. — DEAN RAMSAY. — 
HILL BURTON. — ALEXANDER SMITH. — EDITORIAL EXPERIENCES. 

When I first went to Edinburgh it had for years 
ceased to be " the Modern Athens ;" the exodus to Lon- 
don had set in, and men of letters no longer made it 
their residence by choice. There were many persons, 
however, still remaining who would certainly not be des- 
ignated as '^ local celebrities," and who could not have 
been found in any provincial town. They were also of 
various types. Robert Chambers and Alexander Smith ; 
Aytoun and MacCulloch ; Russel (of the Scotsman) and 
Dean Ramsay; Hill Burton and Gerald Massey could 
hardly have been said to run in couples, or to be tarred 
with the same literary brush. But these, of course, were 
exceptional people. Society in general seemed to the 
Southerner, like the whiskey toddy which had such an in- 
explicable attraction for the natives, a little stiff. Leitch 
Ritchie had warned me that I should find it so. Though 
a Scotchman himself, he had, until within the last few 
years, passed his life in England, and among folk the re- 
verse of "square-toed;" his nature was frank and emo- 
tional; his humor was delicate rather than robust; he 
had no sympathy with the national observances and su- 
perstitions, and unjustly, though under the circumstances 
not unnaturally, took the formalism of his neighbors for 
hypocrisy. He was a great admirer of Edinburgh, but it 
was of the place rather than of the people. In looking 



Robert Chambers. 109 

on the Castle or the Calton Hill or Arthur's Seat, " all, 
all save the spirit of man is divine," was his favorite quo- 
tation. This was a misfortune on both sides ; for all who 
knew him liked him.* For my part, some of the best 
friends I have are Scotchmen, and it would be as ungrate- 
ful in me as impertinent to say one word against them ; 
but, as a rule, when they are in their own country they 
need not culture, indeed, but cultivation ; it is difficult to 
make friends with them oflEhand ; they have no demonstra- 
tiveness ; and one seems, as the agricultural gentleman 
said of claret as a liquor, " to get no f orrarder with them," 
even when you are getting " f orrarder." With Scotchmen 
out of Scotland this is not the case, or not nearly so much 
the case ; but when they are at home it is so. They are 
difficult of access, and not like those imprudent damsels 
who are said to meet the other sex " half-way !" This is 
no very serious defect, nor one to be resented with such 
bitterness as Sydney Smith has spoken of it ; but to a 
stranger in Edinburgh, like myself, it was undoubtedly 
a drawback. 

As to hospitality, there w^as nothing to complain of in 
that respect, for Robert Chambers not only opened his 
own doors to me at once, but introduced me to his literary 
friends. He had long known me, of course, as a contrib- 
utor to the Journal^ though I had met him only once 
before under Miss Martineau's roof. His manner was dry, 
and though his eye twinkled with humor, I did not imme- 
diately recognize it as such. It was, in fact, the first ac- 
quaintance that I had made with a man of his type, and 

* Even B. — I will call him B., for indeed he was busy enough, though 
he made no honey — speaking to Thackeray of Leitch Kitchie, admitted that 
he was "a very gentlemanly man ;'* but " How does B. know /" said Thack- 
eray. 



110 Some Literary Recollections. 

he puzzled me. I never fell into the Englishman's error 
in connection with northern " wut." Of epigram and rep- 
artee the Scotch have indeed very little ; they do not un- 
derstand the use of the rapier ; but their humor, generally 
grim as that of the Americans (though not the least like 
it), yet sometimes very good-natured, I did not fail to ap- 
preciate from the first. Robert Chambers's humor was of 
the good-natured sort. His nature was essentially " good ;" 
from the pleasure he took in the popularity of his friends, 
I used to call him " the Well-wisher ;" nor did he confine 
himself, as so many benevolent folks do, to wishing. I 
was intimately connected with him for twenty years, every 
one of which increased my regard for him, and when he 
^ied I lost one of the truest friends I ever had. 

His manner, however, on first acquaintance, was some- 
what solid and unsympathetic. He had a very striking 
face and figure, as well known in Edinburgh as St. Giles's 
Cathedral, but a stranger would have taken him for a di- 
vine, possibly even for one of the "unco' guid." In Lon- 
don his white tie and grave demeanor caused him to be 
always taken for a clergyman — a very great mistake — 
which used to tickle him exceedingly. " When I don't 
give a beggar the penny he solicits," he used to say, " he 
generally tells me, after a few cursory remarks, that ' the 
ministers are always the hardest.' " He could appreciate 
a joke even upon a subject so sacred as the Journal itself. 
Mrs. Beecher Stowe had been visiting Edinburgh, and 
had had some talk, he told me, with his brother William. 
She spoke of various periodicals, and presently remarked, 
in an offhand manner, " You publish a magazine yourself, 
don't you ?" So might a visitor to Rome have observed 
to the Pope, " You have a church here, have you not — 
St. Peter's or some such name ?" 



The Brothers Chambers. Ill 

As these reminiscences only concern themselves with 
literature, there is no need, save in justice to another, to 
speak in them, of William Chambers. He was in no sense 
a man of letters ; his style was bald, and his ideas mere 
platitudes ; but because he had started the Journal it was 
difficult for him to understand that its subsequent and 
permanent success was OAving to his brother. Being child- 
less and of great wealth, he was enabled to perform cer- 
tain public acts, which cast Robert, who was weighted 
with a large family, comparatively into the shade. But 
there was really no comparison between them. 

I know no man who did so much literary work of such 
various kinds, and upon the whole so well, as Robert 
Chambers. There is now no doubt — indeed it was al- 
ways an open secret — that he wrote the famous "Ves- 
tiges," though, until the late disclosure of Mr. Ireland, I 
had conjectured from the style that the book might have 
been written in collaboration. His scientific and anti- 
quarian works were numerous ; his essays of themselves 
fill many volumes, and admirably reflect his character — 
humor mixed with common-sense. 

He held two pews, each at different churches. I asked 
him why he had them in duplicate. " Because," he replied, 
" when I am not in the one, it will always be concluded by 
the charitable that I am in the other." 

My friends, his daughters, were very lively and full of 
fun, and on one occasion, on their coming back to Edin- 
burgh from some stay in London, their father was thus con- 
gratulated by an old church-goer on their return : 

" We were glad to see them back again," he said — 
" yours is such a merry pew." 

William was always talking of the poverty of his youth, 
and hinting, very broadly, at the genius which had raised 



112 Some Literary Recollections. 

him to eminence. He was fond of holding forth upon the 
miseries of a poor lad who had had to ''thole" and toil 
for his livelihood, and had afterwards, by diligence and 
merit, made a great figure in the world ; and the peroration 
(for which everybody was quite prepared, ^. €., with their 
handkerchiefs, not at their eyes, but stuffed in their 
mouths) used to be always, "7" was that BoyP 

All this was hateful to Robert, and gave him, as well 
it might, extreme annoyance. I remember being applied 
to by the proprietors of an American magazine to write 
a sketch of the lives of the two brothers, and applied to 
Robert for the materials. He laid his hand upon my 
shoulder, and after expressing in the kindest manner his 
regret at being obliged to refuse me any favor, declined 
to give me his assistance. "' I am sick of the twice-told 
— nay, of the two-hundred-times-told — story," he said ; 
^' apply to my brother William, and he will be delighted 
to tell you the whole truth about it — and more. He 
will be sure to say that we came barefooted into Edin- 
burgh ; whereas, as a matter of fact, we came in the 
' Flea.' "* It was very funny, but also very pathetic, and 
I need scarcely say that the article never was written. 

To my thinking there is no example more convincing 
of the undue influence of wealth in this country than the 
manner in which a good, and one may fairly say a great 
man like Robert Chambers was dwarfed in the public eye 
beside his brother. When he died there was a paragraph 
or two in the papers commenting on the event ; while the 
decease of William was dwelt upon as a national calam- 
ity, though indeed no one went quite the length of saying 
that " the gayety of nations had been eclipsed " by it. 

* The " Flea " was the name of the coach which at that time ran be- 
tween Peebles and Edinburgh. 



A Sallath Morn, 113 

It is five-and-twenty years since I lived in Edinburgh, 
and no doubt great changes have since taken place there 
in social matters ; but what struck a stranger most at 
that time was the extraordinary disregard of the precept 
that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the 
Sabbath. A man might do many things much worse, and 
be regarded with much charity, but if he broke the Sab- 
bath no one had a good word to say for him. The only 
parallel to such a state of things occurs in a certain nar- 
rative of a pious stock-broker who about that time was 
taken by Italian brigands. They were thieves and mur- 
derers of the deepest dye, superstitious to the last degree, 
and speaking a language of which he understood nothing ; 
yet a great deal of his captivity was spent in the attempt 
to teach them to observe Sunday. He made no other 
missionary effort, but at that he worked away, until he 
was ransomed, with the greatest perseverance ; and I have 
no doubt he was a native of Edinburgh. 

About this period a majority in the House of Commons 
had been '^ snatched " in a division against the Sunday 
post, which prevented the whole country from sending or 
receiving letters on the seventh day ; as no post went out 
from London on Sunday, and there was no telegraph, this 
made two consecutive days of failure of correspondence ; 
the inconvenience was insupportable, and after six weeks 
the old regime was again adopted, but there was not, and 
I believe there never had been, any Sunday post in Edin- 
burgh. The only alleviation permitted was that for one 
half -hour on Sunday morning the Unregenerate were al- 
lowed to send for their letters to the General Post-office. 
The scene beggared description ; though I made an effort 
to describe it — not in the Journal^ of course, but in House- 
hold WordSy under the descriptive title of '^A Sabbath 



114 Some Literary Recollections, 

Morn." Hundreds of men, women, and children crowded 
the Great Hall, calling out their names and addresses at 
the tojD of their voices, while the letters addressed to them 
were thrown at their heads by unwilling and scandalized 
officials. It was a pandemonium which even the " awaken- 
ing" sermons of the day could hardly rival in their de- 
scriptions of what was awaiting those who read their let- 
ters on a Sunday. 

This open exhibition of the Sabbatarian yoke was noth- 
ing, however, as compared with its secret and unacknowl- 
edged sway. In the street where I first resided, it struck 
me that, to judge by its drawn-down blinds, the people 
spent a good deal of their time upon the seventh day in 
bed ; on my second Sunday, however, I was undeceived, 
for my landlady came up and informed me that, though 
she had not spoken of it last Sunday, she must now draw 
my attention to the fact that it was not usual in Edin- 
burgh to draw up the window-blinds on the Sabbath, and 
that the neighbors had begun to remark upon the '* unlaw- 
ful " appearance of her establishment, which had hereto- 
fore been a God-fearing house. 

What astonished me even more than this example of 
fetich worship itself, was that I found persons, otherwise 
sensible enough, to endorse, or at all events to excuse it. 
Hill Burton, for instance, a man of exceptional intelli- 
gence, to whom I expressed my sentiments upon the sub- 
ject pretty strongly, replied that a " national prejudice 
was always worthy of respect," or something to that 
amazing effect. An Englishman will listen unmoved, and 
even amused, to a description of the weaknesses of his 
fellow-countrymen, but a Scotchman, like the Greenwich 
pensioner of old, who would never allow " the Hospital " 
to be found fault with except by himself, resents it. 



Alexander Riissel. 115 

This was the case even with so robust a man as Alex- 
ander Russel, of the Scotsman — a great personage in those 
days in Edinburgh, and far beyond it. I remember say- 
ing something about the stiffness of social life in Edin- 
burgh in his presence, and instantly apologizing for it 
in rather a maladroit manner. " You have so little of it 
yourself," I said, " that I quite forgot you were a Scotch- 
man at all." "Sir," he said, "I want no compliment at 
the expense of my country." When I ventured to reply, 
however, that he ought to accept it as being, probably, the 
very first thing that ever had been done at the expense 
of his country, his sense of humor at once came to the 
rescue and we became great friends. He even stood a 
sly reference to the fact that no return tickets were at 
that time issued from Edinburgh to London, but only the 
other way. 

I have never met a man with a keener sense of drollery 
than Alexander Russel — and in his hands it became a 
powerful engine. Readers looked for his articles in the 
Scotsman with expectations altogether different from those 
which the ordinary leader-writer awakens. They were 
not only logical and convincing, but had a strain of good- 
natured irony running through them which — save to the 
subjects of their satire — was universally acceptable. His 
anecdotes were ad.mirable, and those who figured in them 
were drawn from the life. He used to call me " that in- 
terloping Englishman," and would expatiate with great 
humor upon the unnatural and unparalleled condition of 
affairs which had brought one of my countrymen up to 
Scotland to take the bread out of native mouths. We 
soon grew to be so intimate that he would joke — and by no 
means "with difficulty" — upon the national peculiarities in 
my presence, just as though I had not been " an interloper." 



116 Some Literary Recollections, 

Besides the humor of his stories there was almost 
always some graphic illustration of character in them. 
In Sutherlandshire, and some other northern counties of 
Scotland, the Church was at that time ruled by certain 
elders of a Puritanic sort, but who had also an eye to the 
main chance. A young man in whom they were inter- 
ested came down to practise law in Edinburgh, and after 
a month or two one of the elders followed him and in- 
quired of Russel how their young friend S was get- 
ting on. " I think," he said, '^ he will succeed, for he is a 
truly moral man !" 

" He's well enough," returned Russel, rather contemptu- 
ously ; '' but as for his morality, I am not aware, though 
he does come from your part of the country, that he is 
more moral than other people." 

"Hoot, man !" was the unexpected rejoinder ; "I dinna 
mean drink and the lasses, but gambling, and sic things 
as you lose money by !" 

A still more characteristic story of his was in connec- 
tion with his own affairs. The Liberal party in Scotland, 
who were under great obligations to him for his advocacy 
as a journalist, had subscribed very handsomely to pre- 
sent him with a testimonial in hard cash. He was not a 
rich man, but he had doubts as to whether he should 
accept a gift which might destroy or weaken his prestige, 
and he consulted a fellow - countryman upon the point. 
The advice, as he told it me with infinite relish, was as 
follows : 

" If it is five thousand pounds, my man, tak' it ; if it's 
less than five thousand, don't tak' it ; and say you loouldnH 
have takeri it if it had been fifty thousand P'^ 

Unfortunately, from my inability, already alluded to, 
to master, or even to imitate^ an alien tongue, I am 



Scotch Cheeses. 117 

obliged to relate these things in English, whereby I am 
conscious they lose much in the telling. As Russel de- 
livered them, with appropriate expression and " mouth- 
ing out his hollow o's and a's," they were infinitely more 
diverting. 

The former editor of the Scotsman^ when he retired to 
enjoy his well-earned leisure, was so good as to give 
Russel some particular advice. " The conduct of a news- 
paper," he said, " is always a very serious thing, full of 
dangers and difficulties ; but in addition to its usual anx- 
ieties, yoit^ my friend, will every night have to keep the 
most vigilant watch lest that man Hill Burton should con- 
trive to insert his theory about Scotch cheeses into your 
columns." 

It is not necessary to particularize what it was ; it will 
suffice to say that this theory — based upon the exposure 
of Scotch cheeses in front of the shops, and the treatment 
to which they were consequently exposed — was not com- 
plimentary, or likely to recommend them to the purchaser. 
" Day and night," said Russel, " for fifteen years, I never 
forgot my predecessor's warning ; a hundred times that 
theory endeavored to gain admittance into my columns, 
and by most unlooked-for channels ; sometimes it lurked 
concealed in an article upon the Crimean War, sometimes 
in one on the Divorce Laws, sometimes in one on the 
divisions of the Free Church of Scotland, or even on the 
Disruption itself ; but it was always detected and struck 
out. It was a duel to the death; for I knew that Hill 
Burton would never relax his efforts to get his views upon 
Scotch cheeses into print while there was breath in his 
body. On the morning of the last day of the fifteenth 
year he ran into my office, waving a paper in his hand, 
and crying out, 'It's in ! it's in !' 



118 Some Literary Recollections. 

"^What/ cried I, ^you persevering devil! not in the 
Scotsman^ surely V 

"^No,' said he, 'in Chamhers^s Information for the 
People,"^ 

'' My relief of mind is not to be described, and I must 
also confess (here Russel turned to me with a chuckle) 
that it gave me no little satisfaction to think that it was 
your friends the Chawmerses after all who'd got it." 

Russel was not a Radical — far from it ; indeed he had 
that somewhat exaggerated respect for hereditary rank 
which often accompanies Scotch Liberalism ; but apart 
from its political bearing he could see the absurdity of 
its claims as clearly as any one. At that time there were 
two Lords of Session in Edinburgh of similar sounding 
names — Lord Neaves and Lord Deas. A young sprig of 
the former's family once informed Russel that he "be- 
longed to the oldest house in England — Neaves is in fact 
the elder branch of the house of Neville." 

''Dear me!" was the dry reply; "then in that case, 
reasoning by analogy, Lord Deas may claim a still more 
ancient origin." 

The wit and wisdom of Alexander Russel would indeed 
fill a volume. Few men made a more striking figure in 
local society than he did in the times I speak of; and 
albeit they were not the great times of Edinburgh, he had 
many noteworthy contemporaries. 

Dr. Simpson, though he was not then Sir James, was 
at the summit of his reputation. His appearance was 
remarkable ; Gerald Massey has graphically described it 
in his dedication to one of his poems, " Body of Bacchus 
with the Head of Jove." Like many of his noble pro- 
fession, he was very generous, and always took into ac- 
count the means of those who consulted him. He was 



Sir James Sirrvpson, 119 

fond of literature and literary men. I met him first at 
the bedside of Leitch Ritchie, whom he attended assidu- 
ously, notwithstanding the much more profitable patients 
that were always awaiting him. I doubt indeed whether 
he ever took a guinea from him. Simpson, too, was a 
great teller of stories, of a different kind indeed from 
those of Russel, but not less interesting, for the pages of 
human life which lie open to the intelligent physician are 
the most attractive of all readino;. I remember no one in 
his profession who more impressed me as being a man of 
genius than he did. If not a wit himself, he was, at all 
events on one occasion, the cause of wit in another. He 
had, of course, an immense practice in Edinburgh, but it 
seemed to me a world too narrow for the exercise of his 
powers, and I once inquired of a great English doctor 
how it was that Simpson had never come to London. 
"My dear sir," he replied, with a dry smile, "he is quite 
right to stop where he is ; there are no coroners' inquests 
in Scotland." The Faculty has a large collection of pro- 
fessional jokes, but few, I think, better than this one. 

Simpson had a warm admiration for the simplicity and 
tenderness of Leitch Ritchie's character, as indeed had 
every one with whom he was brought into close connec- 
tion. He was one of the last survivors of a school of lit- 
erary men now almost if not quite extinct ; it had the 
culture of the silver-fork school without their affectation, 
and the simplicity of the Bohemians without their dis- 
reputableness. The author of " Wearyfoot Common " had 
been one of the hardest workers of his time ; " as a young 
husband," he told me, " I have often written for the press 
for hours, while at the same time my foot has rocked the 
cradle of a child !" Composition — especially invention — 
under such circumstances seemed to me to be an impossi- 



120 Some Literary Becollections. 

bility, and I said so. "Yet necessity, my young friend," was 
his half grave, half gay reply, " is said to be the mother of 
invention. You do not know what it is to live by your pen 
onlyP And indeed the difference between this and merely 
supplementing one's income by one's pen is enormous. 

In his time Leitch Ritchie had written upon almost 
every subject under heaven. His total ignorance of any 
matter was no obstacle to his undertaking it ; he cheer- 
fully sat down to the task of reading it up. To store the 
mind with general information he held to be sheer extrav- 
agance ; to acquire what might never be wanted was a 
waste of time, and he had no time to spare ; it was only 
rich men who could afford to fritter away their intel- 
ligence in that lavish way. On the other hand, if he 
wanted to write upon a particular subject he would con- 
trive to know more about it in twenty-four hours than any 
man of general information could possibly know\ He was, 
as is well known, the companion of Turner in his Conti- 
nental travels, and an authority on matters of art ; and he 
once wrote a pamphlet on the ear, for an aurist, which 
made that gentleman's professional reputation. 

As an editor this many-sidedness was of great advan- 
tage to him, and still more to his contributors ; scientific 
or poetic, imaginative or matter-of-fact, he could sympa- 
thize more or less with them all. It was a matter of 
boast with its proprietors that, during the long course 
w^hich the Journal had run, its contributors formed of 
themselves a public ; and they were at least as various as 
they were numerous. I remember three remarkable con- 
tributions coming in one day, which my Co. tossed over 
to me with a nod of introduction in each case : " That 
comes from an archbishop," he said (naming him), 'Hhat 
from a washerwoman, and that from a thief." 



Would-be ContrihutoTs. 121 

Until a man becomes an editor he can never plumb the 
depths of literary human nature ; the position affords an 
opportunity for the most surprising studies, especially 
anrong the Rejected, who form nineteen-twentieths of his 
constituency. Vanity, as might be expected, is the lead- 
ing feature of this class, .but the monsters it begets in the 
way of suspicion and duplicity are almost inconceivable. 

It was by no means uncommon to find an article, after 
the first few pages, gummed together ; the writer's notion 
being that his paper would go through a very perfunctory 
examination indeed, and that he would thus be in a posi- 
tion to prove what insurmountable obstacles he had had 
to contend against ; it never struck him that, even if his 
device was not discovered, the first few pages would have 
been amply sufficient data for his condemnation. 

Others, however, would admit that their contributions 
were not uniformly admirable. "After the first ten 
chapters," they would write, " you will find, Mr. Editor, 
that my story grows intensely interesting." When these 
precious MSS. came back to hand, their proprietors were 
of course positively convinced that the eleventh chapter 
had never been reached, and so far at least they came to 
a just conclusion. 

Others, again, were really modest as to their talents ; 
they looked for acceptance on quite other grounds than 
literary merit — because they were only seventeen years 
of age, or because they were more than seventy ; because 
they had an aged aunt dependent on them for subsistence ; 
because their husband was a clergyman, and wanted his 
chancel repaired ; or because they were of Royal descent. 

Some would-be contributors did not confine their ef- 
forts to " make the thing that is not as the thing that is " 
to story writing ; I am sorry to say they stooped to de- 

6 



122 Some Literary Recollections. 

ception. Their articles, they would assure us, had been 
written with a view to our " particular needs," and " had 
been sent to no other periodical " — which was not always 
true. We *' Wes" have an almost infallible test for as- 
certaining whether our magazine is the first love of a 
contributor, and I have known language of virgin passion 
to be applied to us after it had been addressed, in vain, 
to several other quarters. The most amazing of these 
hypocritical appeals were, however, personal, and directed 
to my coadjutor himself. The Avriters had known his 
works from their childhood ; had admired his genius 
from the first moment they had begun to appreciate lit- 
erary excellence, and held his name as a household word 
— yet never by any accident did they spell it right. 

The discovery of these lapses from the path of recti- 
tude in persons of my own calling, or who, at least, as- 
pired to it, shocked me not a little. It is a comfort to 
rt^flect that I am narrating incidents of a quarter of a 
century ago, since which (as is well known) human nat- 
ure has become another thing altogether. Moreover, if 
some of my editorial experiences were disenchanting, there 
were many more of quite an opposite nature, and which 
gave great zest and interest to my new calling. With 
such an example of conscientiousness and good-will as I 
had before me in Leitch Ritchie, it would have been difii- 
cult indeed to take a cynical view of things, even had I 
been so disposed. Unhappily I was but a short time un- 
der his tutelage ; ill-health compelled him to resign his 
duties and remove to London when our partnership (as 
he always called it, though I was but in static pupillari) 
had lasted barely twelve months. 

While I am upon the subject, I may mention one or 
two cases — the individuals connected with them being 



A Casual. 123 

long dead and gone — illustrative of the curiosities of edi- 
torship. I had been in the habit* of receiving from a 
certain contributor some admirable sketches of low Lon- 
don life ; graphic, though without offensive coarseness, 
they convinced the reader of their absolute reality ; and 
as the visiting of the dens of the metropolis was not at 
that time so fashionable an amusement as it is at present, 
my amateur explorer interested me very much. It struck 
me, I remember, that a large proportion of the payment 
he received for his sketches must find its way into the 
pockets of the policemen employed as his body-guard. 

One day, after a long interval, he sent me a paper 
called " A Night in the Thames Tunnel ;" he described 
himself as being without the twopence that ordinarily 
procured him a lodging, and as resorting to the Tunnel — 
at that time a penny footway — for warmth and shelter. 
The same idea, he said, had occurred to others ; for on 
the occasion in question he had found several homeless 
persons like himself, by no means of the lower classes, 
huddled under the gas-lights, and waiting wearily for the 
dawn. The preface, as well as the article, was so life- 
like that, for the first time, it occurred to me that my con- 
tributor might really be as poor as he professed to be. 
I therefore wrote to ask him if his affairs were indeed 
so unprosperous, and making no apology if they were not 
so, since my mistake was evidently, in that case, due to 
his marvellous powers of description. I got in reply one 
of the saddest revelations I ever received ; it is sufficient 
here to say that my correspondent was utterly destitute. 

That a man possessed of such talents should be in such 
extreme necessity seemed almost appalling. I went at 
once to Alexander Russel, whom I knew to be just then 
in want of literary assistance, and laid the case before him. 



124 Some Literary Hecollections. 

" Of course there is something wrong," he said, grimly 
— "probably drink; but I'll give jowv protege a trial." 
And the Thames Tunneller came up to Edinburgh forth- 
with at a salary of £200 a year. 

The end of the story was almost as strange as its com- 
mencement ; my contributor (who did 7iot drink, I am 
happy to say) kept his place for twelve months or so, 
and then departed elsewhere, when I lost sight of him 
altogether. I thought he had ''gone under" for good 
and all. Ten years afterwards a work on London life, 
purporting to be written by a Scripture Reader, made a 
great sensation. I read and admired it like the rest of 
the world, but my interest in it was vastly increased on 
receiving a presentation copy of the second edition, with 
" my first success " in a well-known handwriting on the 
title-page. It was the Thames Tunneller emerged to 
light for the second time. 

There was a young poet among my contributors who 
also immensely interested me. His effusions were not 
only far above the average of magazine verse, but of 
great merit and still greater promise. He was not twen- 
ty-one, and yet there was nothing morbid in his composi- 
tions. They were so hopeful and wholesome, indeed, that 
it was impossible to have supposed, what was in fact the 
case, that he was suffering from an incurable disease and 
knew it. We corresponded pretty frequently. One day 
I received a reply from his father, instead of himself, 
announcing his son's death. It is too sacred to quote 
here, but what he said of the intense pleasure the young 
man had derived from the encouragement I had been 
able to afford him gave me a lasting satisfaction. 

On addressing on another occasion, in the course of 
business, a pretty constant contributor, I found that she 



Litera/py Cheats, 125 

also — for it was a young lady — had passed into " the sun- 
less land." In her case again the father wrote, but in 
utter ignorance that his daughter had ever been an au- 
thoress. '^The considerable sums," he said, "which she 
seemed to have at command for charitable purposes had 
for some time astonished us ; but her disposition was as 
reticent as it was benevolent, and she never let us into 
her harmless secret." The vanity which is supposed to 
be almost inseparable from a young author's character 
certainly did not exist in this case. 

There were sadder incidents even than these. Some 
one lost to his friends, or at all events to one friend, 
either mother or lover, had written a poem in the Jour- 
nal, which, meeting her eye long after its publication, 
had apparently betrayed to her his identity. 

" I fear that what I am about to request," she wrote, 
"is beyond your power to grant, but I make it with an 
extreme yearning. . . . Can you, will you tell me who 

wrote or sent to you the lines entitled ? Was there 

a name or initials ? Was it sent from England or Aus- 
tralia ? . . . Try, try, sir, to remember : a broken-hearted 
and dying woman will ever bless you ! For pity's sake 
endeavor to satisfy me !" 

Worse, though less pathetic cases than these meet the 
editorial eye. The system of anonymous publication is, 
in my opinion, far superior to that of signed articles, if 
only for the reason that it gives the unknown author his 
best chance ; but it has, of course, its drawbacks, and one 
of them is that it affords the opportunity for misrepre- 
sentation and fraud. Mere vanity often induces weak 
natures to lay claim to compositions which have attracted 
notice. I have known dozens of instances of it, some of 
which have had the most painful results. The lie once 



126 Some Literary Recollections, 

told requires a score of other lies to corroborate it, but 
detection in the end is certain. 

" I hope I am not taking too great a liberty," writes 
one unhappy father, " in asking about an article written 
in your Journal of such and such a date." [Let me once 
more say I am speaking of things that happened more 
than twenty years ago, and which can hardly, therefore, 
now offend any one.] '^I have been told, and by him- 
self, that it was written by a son of mine. I fear — I fear 
that vanity has induced him to tell us a falsehood. Will 
you be good enough to write the word 'Yes' or the 
word ' No ' inside the enclosed stamped envelope ?" 

This young gentleman had only deceived his family, 
but there were some cases in which positive frauds were 
committed, and money taken for articles written by an- 
other hand. I remember a very well-informed individual 
doing me the honor of a personal visit, and bringing with 
him an article on ''The Literature of Cuba," in which 
island he described himself as being a resident. It was 
an interesting paper, and as I had never happened to hear 
of Cuban literature I accepted it. A few days after- 
wards he called again, announcing himself as being about 
to depart for his native isle, and inquired whether it 
would be convenient to let him have the payment for the 
paper in advance ; a request which was at once complied 
with. When the paper appeared, months afterwards, I 
got one of those letters, half playful, half satirical, with 
which all editors are familiar, from " A Constant Reader," 
pointing out that it was advisable in a journal professing 
to publish only original articles to mention the fact when 
any exception was made, as in the case of " The Literature 
of Cuba ;" the whole of which, " as you are doubtless 
aware," said my correspondent, " is copied verhathn and 



Imjpatience. 127 

literatim from (I think) ' Murray's Foreign and Colonial 
Library.' " 

This was reprehensible enough ; but not so bad as 
copying stories — of course not recent ones — out of other 
magazines, and not only getting money from us under 
false pretences, but embroiling us with our contempo- 
raries, who in their turn borrowed with equal uncon- 
sciousness from us. One of them revenged itself by 
printing the name and address of the rascal ; but the name 
was a false one, and the address he had changed. On 
one occasion a wretch sent us a story (of course under 
another title) published twenty years before in the Jour- 
nal itself ! This was seething a kid in its mother's milk 
indeed. 

Serious as these fraudulent transactions were to our- 
selves, they were much more terrible to the relatives of 
the criminals, who were in most cases young people. " I 
cannot conceive," writes a father, ^' what induced my un- 
happy son to take this course, as he did not require mon- 
ey, and his conduct in other respects has been most satis- 
factory. I have just learned from him the details of his 
misconduct towards you. ... I beg to send you a check 
for the various amounts he has thus unworthily obtained 
from you, and earnestly hope you will see your way to ac- 
cept it without inflicting on him (and me) a public ex- 
posure." 

One of the characteristics of most young authors, or 
would-be authors, is their impatience ; they are in a great 
hurry to be accepted, and when they are accepted, they 
are in a still greater hurry to be printed. They have 
not the least idea of the exigencies of publication, and 
do not understand why their contribution which was sent 
in on the 20th of the month should not be in type upon 



128 Some Literary Recollections. 

the 2'7th. I had experienced this feeling of impatience 
myself, and had had cause to regret it. When I was a 
very tender stripling indeed — not more than sixteen or sev- 
enteen at most — I had sent an article to the People^s Jour- 
nalj and received the joyful tidings of its acceptance. It 
was the first paper that I had ever had accepted, and I 
was wild with triumph and delight. Rather to my an- 
noyance, however, when I purchased the next Saturday's 
number, I did not find in it what I looked for. However, 
I managed to exist for seven days longer without burst- 
ing, bought the succeeding number within the first hour 
of its appearance, tore it open without waiting for a pa- 
per-knife, and was disappointed again. Then I wrote to 
the editor, very calmly and dispassionately, pointing out 
that there had been a mistake, and begging, in the most 
courteous manner, that it might not occur again. It did, 
however, occur again ; whereupon I wrote him another 
letter, not so dispassionate, and in course of post received 
(most deservedly) my MS. declined! With this recollec- 
tion in my mind, I of course felt no surprise at the im- 
patience of contributors. The forms it took were, how- 
ever, sometimes very peculiar. That the subject was as 
old as the hills did not make the slightest difference. The 
same anxiety for instant publication was manifested for 
some essay upon the character of Queen Cleopatra as 
though it were on a topic of the day ; it never seemed to 
strike these writers that what the world had done without 
for a thousand years or so, it might still do without for 
another fortnight ; they hoped to see their contribution 
towards the History of the Visigoths '4n our next issue," 
with the word " next " underlined. 

One gentleman who had sent us a pressing paper of 
this kind (I think on the Round Towers of Ireland) was 



No Name. 129 

especially unfortunate. He was an Irishman himself, he 
told us ; which, however, was somewhat superfluous, for in 
his precipitancy he had omitted to give his address. A 
week afterwards he wrote in a great state of excitement 
to know why he had not heard from us, which nothing 
but the appearance of his Round Towers in print could, 
in his opinion, excuse ; but in this case, too, he gave no 
clew, save the postmark, which was Dublin, to his private 
address. Then he wrote to say that flesh and blood could 
stand such neglect no longer, and that he was coming 
over to Edinburgh to demand a personal explanation ; 
and still he omitted to say where he wrote from. Event- 
ually he actually arrived, livid and foaming, and on being 
confronted with his headless correspondence, only burst 
into a roar of laughter, and observed that it was " mighty 
queer." 

Strange as are the ways of the rejected contributor, 
they are not more j)eculiar than those of the voluntary 
correspondent. The interest he is so good as to take in a 
periodical is of course flattering to those who conduct it, 
but also involves some loss of time in the endeavor to 
satisfy his inquiries. Some are matter-of-fact beyond 
anything which the imagination can conceive. I remem- 
ber publishing a romance of a certain island, not in the 
geographies, where things took j)lace which do not hap- 
pen every day, and arousing an unexpected desire in one 
of these gentry to visit it. " I shall be obliged," writes 
the intending emigrant, "if you will kindly answer the 
following questions : 

" 1. The date at which the account of this interesting 
spot was written. 

" 2. Under what Government it is placed. 

'' 3. Price of land, and method of obtaining it. 



130 Some Literary HecoUections. 

"4. Language spoken. 

'^ 5. Average summer heat. 

*' 6. Kind of sponge referred to — honey-comb or cup. 

"7. Occupations or trades most in request in the isl- 
and." 

Another correspondent finds that a story published in 
the Journal some years ago is founded upon a real in- 
cident in the life of his great-grandfather, and there- 
fore demands that it be '' reprinted in an early number. 
Many friends would take a sufficient number of copies 
of the magazine to fully reimburse you for any expense, 
and it would attract more attention if brought out in one 
of the numbers for this year." 

A good many of the casual correspondents of a period- 
ical are evidently downright mad ; they use it as an es- 
cape-pipe for their lunacy, and thereby, no doubt, prevent 
themselves from ^'jumping on their mothers " or destroy- 
ing their family at a blow (to extract their communica- 
tions would be like quoting from a diary kept in Han well). 
But the semi-sane ones are really noteworthy. These are 
generally scientific persons who differ from the usual de- 
ductions which science has drawn, and who have marvel- 
lous systems of their own only awaiting development to 
revolutionize the face of civilization. 

One of them had a "mechanical hippogriff," only re- 
quiring a little gas to inflate it to go careering over the 
fields of space. Moreover (though, like " the two little 
boys who only learn Latin," in the items required of a 
governess, "it was scarcely worth while to put that in "), 
it had incidentally " a method of expelling vitiated air by 
a succession of revolving fans, which, if thought advisa- 
ble, would discharge the lohole atmosphere of 07ie country 
into another P^ 



Grievances. 131 

Another of these quasi-scientific gentlemen was furious 
with us because we thought the world was round. "I 
suppose, sir," he writes, " that there is no periodical in the 
kingdom which has done more to sustain the infidel im- 
posture of the Newtonian theory than yours. Are you 
still determined to defend what you know to be the gross- 
est fraud invented by man? It is perfectly scandalous 
that a parcel of critics and editors should persist in fool- 
ing the public with the idea of a globulous world." 

The grounds upon which acceptance is demanded by 
the would-be contributor are most curious and unlocked 
for. One lady offers, in return for the satisfaction of see- 
ing herself in print, " to take in a dozen copies of your 
esteemed periodical ;" another, " being the daughter of a 
colonel, has a large circle of friends who, in case of publi- 
cation, would purchase the magazine ;" another has the 
literary recommendation of " one of the clergy." 

Now and then these applicants grew serious even to 
devoutness. " Time," observes one of them, " is the gift 
of Heaven, not to be frittered away in the composition of 
mere medley rhymes," but "the torrent of imagination 
which impels her " can hardly fall short of positive inspi- 
ration : if she is wrong, " God forgive her waste of his 
precious time ;" if right, " a post-ofiice order will oblige." 

Some correspondents have grievances of the most un- 
imaginable type. It occurs^ of course, to more than one 
native of Erin that " we have a settled purpose to carica- 
ture and misrepresent Irish characteristics," otherwise in 
our Irish stories " such mistakes would never be made in 
the brogue." But such complaints were sometimes not 
only national, but local. One writer inquires why the 
town of which she is an inhabitant is not represented in 
our columns by its local geniuses. " I and a few other 



132 Some Literary Recollections. 

ladies," says the writer, " are desirous of informing you 
that this town is full of native talent. We have two poets 

of very high character and wide-spread fame — Mr. A 

and Mr. B ; next, Mr. C— — ; and next, Mr. D and 

Mr. E . The first is a gentleman of fortune ; his poet- 
ry is a little strained, but very fine. There would be no 
chance of your getting anything from him, if (as I under- 
stand) you don't allow your contributors' names to be put to 

their productions. Mr. B is one of our chief literary 

characters, a member of several of the learned societies in 
London, and who has published many things. Nothing 
could be had from him upon the terms stated above. 
The next is Mr. C , a tradesman, and a very fine pas- 
toral and descriptive poet. Mr. D is very fair, and 

has put forth a book of verse. Mr. E is a wealthy 

retired solicitor, out of whom there would be no chance 
of getting any of his productions without money. ... I 
have no motive but your own good, and to show how our 
city is neglected." 

I could tell stories without end of my editorial experi- 
ence, some humorous, some pathetic ; but the impersonal- 
ity of the mysterious " We " ought, I feel, to be respected. 
If the reader wishes for more revelations of this descrip- 
tion, I refer him to the "Editor's Tales " of Anthony Trol- 
lope, which are not only very charming in themselves, but 
unconsciously betray the kindness of heart of the writer, 
and the tender conscientiousness with which he discharged 
his trust. I may add, considering the slenderness of his 
material, and the strong impression that each narrative 
produces on the mind, that the volume is as convincing 
a proof of the genius of the author as anything he ever 
wrote. I once expressed this opinion to Trollope, who 
assented to my view of the matter, but added, with a grim 



" The Hand of Providence^ 133 

smile, that he doubted whether anybody had ever read 
the book except myself ; by which, of course, he meant to 
imply that it had had a very small circulation as com- 
pared with that of his novels. 

I have shown, I think, that the gravity of Edinburgh 
life was greatly mitigated by humor, but still it was very 
serious. Everybody must remember Dean Ramsay's story 
of the dissipated young man "who went to too many fu- 
nerals ;" and there was certainly something of austerity 
even in its pleasures. With a large section of the com- 
munity everything that had relation to pastime was con- 
sidered wicked ; and the booksellers they patronized sold 
nothing but improving books. Wishing to have some 
theoretical knowledge of the national game, I ordered of 
one of them a hand-book of golf, and in due course re- 
ceived a neat little volume entitled "The Hand of Provi- 
dence, exemplified in the Life of John B. Gough " (the 
teetotaller). I took it complainingly to Robert Cham- 
bers, who laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks, and 
rather grudgingly observed, " Now, why should this have 
happened to you and not to me ?" 

So seriously did society at large regard matters, that 
the droller side of things escaped their observation. A 
beggar-man had stood on the old bridge for the last ten 
years with a placard on his breast with this inscription : 
"Blind from my birth ; I have seen better days ;" and 
no one ever seemed to perceive that it was a contradic- 
tion in terms. 

In Princes Street it was in contemplation (nay, for all 
I know it was done) to erect a marble cattle fountain with 
the motto, " Water was not meant for man alone ;" but 
it utterly escaped public notice that such an inscription 
would be an encouragement to whiskey-drinkers. 



134 Borne Literary Beeollections. 

In my case, besides the general gravity of tone, there 
was an especial reason, which, in spite of the many attrac- 
tions of Edinburgh, prevented my ever feeling quite at 
home there. From native dulness — or to whatever other 
cause the inability to catch an alien tongue may be as- 
cribed — I had always a difficulty in appreciating the nice- 
ties of language. The study of character — which is the 
only study I ever really cared for — was consequently de- 
barred from me. Many English authors have depicted 
Scotchmen in their own country ; Saxon chiels have gone 
among them making notes and afterwards printed them — 
though I don't remember, by-the-bye, that the likeness has 
ever been acknowledged by the originals — but I felt that 
I had not their gift ; that I could only see things skin- 
deep. This annoyed me to an extent which to most per- 
sons would seem impossible and incomprehensible. I felt 
like a man seeking for gold, and who knows that it is be- 
neath him in large quantities, but who has unfortunately 
neither spade nor pickaxe ; I resented the mere roughness 
and nodosities of the ground. 

What struck me as a curious feature of Edinburgh so- 
ciety was the extraordinary respect paid to professors of 
all sorts, though they were almost as numerous as colonels 
in the United States. In England we seldom speak of 
them (except in such cases as that of Professor Holloway) 
as professors, and still more rarely address them by that 
title, but in Edinburgh it was not so. I remember an 
amusing example of this. At a large party at which Alex- 
ander Smith the poet (he had just been made Secretary 
to the University) was present, I happened to speak of 
him to our hostess. 

" Notwithstanding all the praise that has been showered 
upon him," I said, " what a modest young fellow he is !" 



Alexander Smith. 135 

She shook her head with gravity. " I am sorry to say 
I cannot agree with you ; for I have just heard him actu- 
ally call Professor Soanso ' Soanso', which I consider to be 
a great liberty in a person of his position." 

The notion of a poet being in an inferior position to a 
professor tickled me exceedingly, but it was not easy to 
find people to share the joke. 

As a matter of fact, Alexander Smith was one of 
the most modest of men. The appearance of his "Life 
Drama " had evoked a tumult of acclaim sufficient to have 
turned the heads of most men of his age : a pattern-draw- 
er at some commercial house in Glasgow, he awoke one 
morning to find himself the most bepraised of poets ; but 
it altered his simple character not one whit ; and when 
the pendulum swung the other way, he took detraction 
with the same good-natured philosophy. " At the worst," 
he said, quoting from his own poem, "it's only a ginger- 
beer bottle burst." The epithet "spasmodic," so freely 
applied to him by the critics of the day, was singularly 
out of place ; he was full of quiet common-sense, mingled 
with a certain Lamb-like humor. In these respects, though 
of a widely different character, he resembled another Ed- 
inburgh notoriety of that day — the gentle and hospita- 
ble Dean Ramsay. 

The simplicity of the latter's character extended to 
his diction ; in the last letter he wrote to me on quitting 
Edinburgh he is so good as to say, after speaking of our 
intercourse, which was mutually agreeable, "You are just 
the sort of person I find so pleasant," and adds, " Do you 
remember dining here with poor Aytoun? Something 
was wrong with him that night, and he was rather grum- 
py." I am afraid he must have been very "grumpy "to 
cause the Dean to mention it ; but it is only just to the 



136 Some Literary liecollecttons. 

reputation of the Professor as a good companion to add 
that I had no recollection of the circumstance. 

The acquaintance of Dr. John Brown in Edinburgh I 
did not happen to make, and have always regretted the 
fact. He writes to me on the eve of my departure, d pro- 
pos of a review I had written on his book, " Our Dogs," 
in which I had termed him, to his great content, " the 
Landseer of Literature :" " You must let me thank you 
most cordially for your generous, pleasant, and altogether 
capital notice of ' Our Dogs.' It made me more than ever 
reproach myself for not having made your personal friend- 
ship. I have been cheated twice this week out of meeting 
you — once at Russel's, on Wednesday, and at Lancaster's 
to-morrow." [Lancaster was a young advocate of great 
promise, of whom Dickens writes to me from Edinburgh 
long afterwards, ^' He is the most able fellow I have met 
in these parts," and whose early death was greatly de- 
plored.] ''I shall watch your career through life with 
sincere interest, and if you get all that I wish you, you 
need not greatly grumble." 

If the prayer of a righteous man availeth much, the 
wish of so excellent a fellow as Dr. John Brown was sure- 
ly not to be despised. 



Dickens. 13Y 



Chapter YI. 

FIRST MEETING WITH DICKENS. — CALVERLY. — MY FIRST BOOK.— A 

LION TAMER. 

It was in 1856 that I first made the personal acquaint- 
ance of Charles Dickens — a circumstance which to me 
was an epoch in my existence. Like all young persons 
devoted to literature, I had had my idols. As a boy I 
used to have visions of untold wealth, with the power of 
laying it at the feet of this or that writer, sometimes to 
be used for the amelioration of the human race (I had of- 
ten given Thomas Carlyle a million or two in trust for 
that purpose), and sometimes for their own benefit. Ten- 
nyson I had thus enriched beyond the dreams of avarice ; 
Browning I had made exceedingly comfortable ; but the 
chief figure in my literary Pantheon had been always 
Dickens. 

For one thing (though that was not the chief thing), he 
had given me more pleasure than any writer — a circum- 
stance which, I have noticed, often arouses no personal 
gratitude. When a book pleases ordinary folks, they no 
more think of the author than when a landscape pleases 
them they think of Him who made it ; but with book- 
worms, even of the most superficial type, the heart warms 
to the man. 

My late friend Calverly, the C» S. C. of "Poems and 
Translations " and "Fly Leaves," when lecturer of Christ's 
College, issued a paper on "Pickwick," after the model 



138 Some Literary Recollections. 

of the usual classical examination papers, containing the 
most out-of-the-way details, and forming a crucial test of 
scholarship. He was so good as to oblige me with a copy 
of it only a few weeks before his lamented and unexpect- 
ed death, and gave me permission to make use of it in 
these Reminiscences. Little did I think at the time that 
he himself would find any place in them as one who had 
joined the majority. He was my junior by some years, 
so that I had not the privilege of knowing him at Cam- 
bridge, but in after -years I often met him. "We were 
neighbors at Grasmere for a whole summer, when I saw 
a great deal of him. His classical attainments were of 
course far beyond me, but not more so than his physical 
gifts. He was the best runner and jumper I ever knew; 
but my admiration never led me to imitate him. Never- 
theless, in company with W and S (his almost 

equally athletic friends) and himself I was once persuaded 
to climb Scawfell from Wastwater. They went up it like 
mountain cats, while I (like panting Time) toiled after 
them in vain. " The labor we delight in physics Payn," 
was his appropriate quotation. 

On another occasion S and he were returning with 

me very late one night, on foot, from some " sports " at 
Ambleside, where somebody, I am afraid, had entered him- 
self as a competitor for the mile race as William Whew- 
ell, Trinity College, Cambridge, under which name he af- 
terwards appeared among the winners in the local paper. 
It was exceedingly dark, and being very near-sighted I 
found it difficult to keep up with them, and was constantly 

denouncing them for the pace they put on. " Now, S ," 

cried Calverly (whose spirits were always those of a school- 
boy), " let us break away from this abusive miscreant, 
hide in the wood yonder, and pretend to be robbers." 



A ^'PickwicTc " Examination. 139 

And off they went. Their abominable intention was to 
ambush in the wooded pass between Rydal and Grasmere, 
and jump out upon me where it was darkest. But though 
scant of wind I was not destitute of intelligence. I found 
with difficulty the short cut over the hill, by the Wishing 
Gate, which they had left out of their calculations, and 
while they still lay in the thicket, bent on their nefarious 
scheme, their proposed victim was at home in his bed. 

Whenever I think of Calverly I think of fun and good- 
fellowship ; of the " wild joys of living ; the leaping from 
rock up to rock; the cool silver shock of the plunge in the 
pool's living water ;" of health and youth and strength. 
Alas, alas ! 

Here are some extracts from the famous examination 
paper: 

•'Christ's College, Christmas, 185T. 
"THE POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF THE PICKWICK CLUB. 

" 1. Mention any occasion, on which it is specified that the Fat Boy was 
not asleep ; and that (1) Mr. Pickwick and (2) Mr. Weller, senior, ran. 
Deduce from expressions used on one occasion Mr. Pickwick's maximum 
of speed. 

" 3. Who were Mr. Staple, Goodwin, Mr. Brooks, Villam, Mrs. Bunkin ; 
* old Nobs,' * cast-iron head,' 'yaung Bantam V 

" 9. Describe the common Prof eel-machine. 

" 10. State the component parts of Dog's-nose ; and simplify the expres- 
sion 'taking a grinder.' 

" 11. On finding his principal in the Pound, Mr. Weller and the town- 
beadle varied directly. Show that the latter was ultimately eliminated, 
and state the number of rounds in the square which is not described. 

"12. ' Anything for air and exercise ; as the wery old donkey observed 
ven they voke him up from his deathbed to carry ten gen'lmen to Green- 
wich in a tax-cart.' Illustrate this by stating any remark recorded in the 
Pickwick papers to have been made by a (previously) dumb animal, with 
the circumstances under which he made it. 

*' 17. Give Weller's Theories for the Extraction of Mr. Pickwick from 
the Fleet. Where was his wife's will found? 



14:0 Some Literary Recollections. 

" 18. How did the old lady make memorandum, and of what, at whist? 
Shew that there were at least three times as many fiddles as harps in 
Muggleton at the time of the ball at Manor Farm. 

" 23. * She's a-swelling wisibly.' When did the same phenomenon occur 
again, and what fluid caused the pressure on the body in the latter case ? 

" 24. How did Mr. Weller, senior, define the Funds ; and what view did 
he take of reduced Consols ? In what terms is his elastic force described 
when he assaulted Mr. Stiggins at the Meeting ? Write down the name of 
the Meeting. 

*' 25. ' irpoParoyviofiiov : " A good judge of cattle ; hence, a good judge 
of character." ' Xote on ^sch. Ag. — Illustrate the theory involved by a 
remark of the parent Weller. 

*' 30. Who, besides Mr. Pickwick, is recorded to have worn gaiters ?'* 

The prizes were a " first edition " of " Pickwick," and 
it will be interesting to many to learn that the two 
prizemen were Walter Besant and Professor Skeat. If 
" Pickwick " were to-day made a text-book for " exams." 
in general, the replies would no doubt be satisfactory, for 
there is now a concordance for the whole of '' Dickens ;" 
but in 1857 there was no need of cramming, for every one 
knew the book and quoted it. I have the vanity to be- 
lieve, had I been qualified as a candidate, I should have 
gained a prize ; at all events, I had my " Dickens " at my 
fingers' ends, and the notion of feeling him there in the 
flesh — of shaking hands with him — was positively intoxi- 
cating. He came to Edinburgh to give his public read- 
ings for the first time, and had little time to spare, of 
course, for private intercourse. On the evening after his 
arrival he was so good, however, as to propose a meeting. 

'* The hours and days," he writes, " run away, while I 
am thus occupied, so imperceptibly that I do nothing 
that I propose to myself to do. I thought we should 
have walked ten miles together by this time. To-mor- 
row morning I am going to take my daughters out to Haw- 



Dickens^ Talk. 141 

thornden, and it occurs to me to ask if you could spare 
time to go with us on the expedition." 

If I had had only twenty-four hours to live I should 
have "spared time" for such a purpose, which did not 
indeed seem to trench upon my earthly span at all, but to 
be a foretaste of paradise. Such enthusiasm is unknown 
in these days, wherein Dickens himself, as an American 
writer informs us, " is no longer to be endured," * and will 
doubtless excite some ridicule ; but for my part I am not 
one whit ashamed of it. Nay, contemptible as the con- 
fession may appear, I feel the same love and admiration 
for Charles Dickens now as I did then. What indeed as- 
tonished even me, I remember, at the time, was that per- 
sonal acquaintance with him increased rather than dimin- 
ished his marvellous attraction for me. In general society, 
especially if it has been of an artificial kind, I have known 
his manner to betray some sense of effort, but in a com- 
pany with whom he could feel at home, I have never met 
a man more natural or more charming. He never wasted 
time in commonplaces — though a lively talker, he never 
uttered a platitude — and what he had to say he said as if 
he meant it. On an occasion which many of my readers 
will call to mind, he once spoke of himself as '^ very hu- 
man :" he did so, of course, in a depreciatory sense ; he 
was the last person in the world to affect to possess any 
other nature than that of his fellows. When some one 
said, "How wicked the world is !" he answered, "True ; 
and what a satisfaction it is that neither you nor I belong 
to it." But the fact is, it was this very humanity which 
was his charm. Whatever there was of him was real, 

* The statement in a recent publication that 4,239,000 volumes of Dick- 
ens's works have been sold in England alone since his death, seems to be 
at variance with this gentleman's view. 



142 Some Literary HeGollections. 

without padding ; and whatever was genuine in others 
had a sympathetic attraction for him. 

The subject, however, which most interested him (and, 
in a less degree, this was also the case with Thackeray) 
was the dramatic — nay, even the melodramatic — side of 
human nature. He had stories without end, taken from 
the very page of life, of quite a different kind from those 
with which he made his readers familiar. There are, in- 
deed, indications of this tendency in his writings, as in 
the tales interspersed in "Pickwick," in the abandoned 
commencement of " Humphrey's Clock," and more mark- 
edly in^is occasional sketches, but they were much more 
common in his private talk. 

"When visiting the exhibition of Hablot Browne's pict- 
ures the other day, I was much struck by the fact that, 
when indulging his own taste, the subjects chosen by the 
artist were not humorous, but sombre and eerie. This, I 
feel sure, Avas what made him so acceptable an illustrator 
to Dickens. He could not only depict humorous scenes 
with feeling, but also such grim imaginings as the old 
Roman looking down on dead Mr. Tulkinghorn, and the 
Ghost Walk at Chesney Wold. The mind of Dickens, 
which most of his readers picture to themselves as revel- 
ling in sunshine, was in fact more attracted to the darker 
side of life, though there was far too much of geniality 
in him to permit it to become morbid. 

On the occasion of our first meeting, however, I saw 
nothing of all this ; he was full of fun and brightness, 
and in five minutes I felt as much at my ease with him 
as though I had known him as long as I had known his 
books. It was not one of the days on which Hawthornden 
was open to the public, and we had much difiiculty in 
obtaining admittance at the lodge ; and when we got to 



Hawthornden. 143 

the house we were detained there again, and there was a 
difficulty about seeing the glen. I went within -doors 
and expostulated, but for a long time without success ; 
the inmates, I am sorry to say, did not seem to be ac- 
quainted with Dickens's name — a circumstance which, 
though it would only have made him laugh the more, I 
did not venture to disclose. The fancy picture which he 
drew of my detention in that feudal abode, and of the 
mediaeval tortures which had probably been inflicted upon 
me, made ample amends, however, for what I had suffered 
on behalf of the party. In the end, we saw all that was 
to be seen ; and never shall I forget the face of the heredi- 
tary guide and gate-keeper when Dickens tipped him in 
his usual lavish manner. 

This retainer had not thought much of him before — 
indeed, had obviously never heard of him — but his salute 
at parting could not have been more deferential had the 
author of '^Pickwick" been the Lord of the Isles. The 
humors of the day must have made some imj^ression upon 
Dickens himself, for in a letter two years afterwards he 
reminds me of the imprisonment I had suffered for his 
sake in the gloomy cells of Hawthornden. Late that 
night I supped with him — after his reading — at his hotel, 
alone ; after which I discarded forever the picture which 
I had made in my mind of him, and substituted for it a 
still pleasanter one taken from life. 

In the following year I published my first book, a col- 
lection of " Stories and Sketches," taken from my con- 
tributions to Household Words and Chambers'^ s Journal, 
I have been often asked by young authors whether " it 
pays " to republish such articles. Directly it certainly 
does not pay, for the venture is almost always a pecuniary 
loss ; but indirectly, if the articles are really good, it is 



14A Some Ziterary Becollections. 

very remunerative. It introduces the writer not only to 
the public (who, of course, have hitherto never heard of 
him), but to editors in general, who thus obtain a good 
specimen of his powers. In old days this system of ad- 
vertising one's literary wares was not so common as at 
present ; it was generally resorted to only by geniuses in 
humble life whose works were published by subscription ; 
and whatever advantages they derived from the system 
were more than counterbalanced by the latter fact. One 
of them, who afterwards became very famous, observed 
to me that he had bought his first reputation at a much 
higher price than those who had paid for it — ^. 6., who 
had published at their own expense. "Every one who 
subscribed five shillings to that book of mine is in a posi- 
tion to say that but for him I should never have been 
heard of ; and about two out of three do say so." But 
this is only to admit that the possession of spare cash in 
literature is as useful as it is in all other professions. 

Before leaving this subject I should add, for fear of 
being thought to recommend " rushing into print," that 
while many writers have been benefited by early publi- 
cation, quite as many (even of those who have afterwards 
made their mark in the world) have lived to repent it. 
In youth — though I think this is not the case with us in 
maturity — we are not such good judges of our own work 
as other people; we are apt to make comparisons between 
it and that of other writers, instead of estimating its in- 
trinsic worth, which alone ought to guide us.* 

* A similar feeling causes some contributors to endeavor to recommend 
themselves to the notice of an editor in the following conciliatory manner : 
" Without self -flattery, I think I may venture to say that the paper I send 
to you, however modest in merit, is at all events superior to the majority 
of the articles in your esteemed magazine." 



''Foster BrothersP 145 

My next book was a narrative of school and college 
life, called the " Foster Brothers," which had a very fair 
success, and was republished, as everything I subsequent- 
ly wrote has been, in America. My works have also been 
translated into various languages. Perhaps nothing gives 
a young author so much pleasure as to see the product 
of his brain in a foreign tongue, even though (as in my 
case) he cannot read it. To the satisfaction I derived 
from the ^' Foster Brothers " there was, however, a ter- 
rible drawback, in the form of a most scathing notice 
in the Saturday Review. It was headed, on account of 
certain democratic opinions the volume had displayed, 
the " Bloated Aristocracy," and made me most thorough- 
ly miserable. The writer — now one of her Majesty's 
judges — has laughed with me since about it, but I am 
never so tickled with the reminiscence as he is. I have 
a great personal regard for him, but note with pleasure 
that the newspapers describe him as "a hanging judge." 

In acknowledging the receipt of this book in his usual 
kind and cordial manner, Dickens misspells it " Forster 
Brothers," and apologizes for the mistake by saying " thi^ 
is because I am always thinking of my friend John Fors- 
ter." I afterwards received (as will be mentioned in its 
proper place) a still more curious proof of his devotion 
to one whom, from many points of view, one would have 
judged to be little in sympathy with him. 

By this time I had made some success as a writer of 
lively sketches and humorous articles ; rejection, so far 
as they were concerned, had become as rare to me as 
acceptance had formerly been, and my aspirations began 
to be more ambitious. It struck me that I might one 
day write a successful novel. This is not quite so easy, 
however, as to express your opinion about a novel writ- 

1 



146 Some Literary Recollections, 

ten by somebody else. The proper construction of such a 
work comes by experience, and never by intuition. When 
a young writer attempts it, he succeeds at best in writing 
a narrative and not a novel; he takes a character, gener- 
ally more or less like himself, and describes his career 
from the cradle to the altar, which he considers to be 
equivalent to the grave. It is, in fact, an autobiography 
of a person of whom no one has ever heard, and the only 
chance, therefore, for its success is that the incidents in 
the hero's life should be of a striking kind. 

Fortune was so good as to favor me with quite a 
pattern hero for this purpose, in a gentleman who had 
achieved a reputation as a tamer of wild beasts. What 
his real name was I never knew, but his professional one 
was, if not romantic, at least remarkable. It was Ticker- 
ocandua. I made his acquaintance when visiting a trav- 
elling menagerie of which he was the pride and orna- 
ment, and we became very friendly. His life up to the 
time he had entered upon his present dangerous calling 
had been uneventful enough; but I perceived in him the 
materials of excellent " copy." I thought that he would 
make a capital example of a family scapegrace of pluck 
and spirit, who, more sinned against than sinning, had 
run away from his friends and taken to tiger - taming. 
On every " lawful day," as the Scotch phrase runs, he was 
engaged with his animals — witching the world with feats 
compared with which the noblest horsemanship sunk into 
insignificance. So he came to supper with me on a Sun- 
day. Our little servant-maid's difiiculty in announcing 
him as ^' Mr. Tickerocandua " was considerable; and when 
he began to talk of his tooth - and - claw experiences, I 
thought her eyes would have come out of her head. He 
was the politest person I ever met with, for, having helped 



A Zion-tamer, 147 

himself to oil (thinking it to be white vinegar) with his 
oysters, he consumed them without a syllable of com- 
plaint, and even with apparent relish. 

This gentleman was so good as to show me his left 
shoulder, scarred in a hundred places by the claws of the 
leopards as they " took off " it every day in their leaps, 
during the " unparalleled performance of the wild leopard 
hunt." He had the mark of a bite on his arm which cost 
a lion its life, and his proprietor three hundred pounds. 
" It was a case of which was to go," he said — " the lion 
or me — and I struck him over the nose with my loaded 
whip-handle." There is only one principle by which the 
wild-beast world can be ruled, he told me — that of fear ; 
and should one of them once cease to fear him, he added, 
his life would not have been worth an hour's purchase. 
He had been twice dragged off insensible from an abor- 
tive performance of " The Tiger King," and only pre- 
served from being torn to pieces by the interposition of 
a red-hot bar ; yet directly he recovered himself in he 
went again, whip in hand, and subdued the beasts. '' It 
was simply a question of showing myself their master 
then and there, or of giving up my situation." He gave 
me these details (which were afterwards corroborated by 
the evidence of others) with great simplicity, and without 
the least approach to boastfulness, and they interested 
me immensely. When this is the case with any subject, 
I have always found, after due consideration of the mat- 
ter, that I can make it interesting to my readers, and in 
the "Family Scapegrace" I scored my first success. It 
came out originally in serial form — as every novel I have 
ever written has also done — and has passed through 
many editions, but I believe it is as popular to-day as it 
was twenty years ago. For me, however, it has always a 



148 Some Literary Recollections, 

melancholy association, for the brave young fellow who 
suggested it to me met, in the end, with the fate which 
he had so long tempted. He was not indeed, like the bad 
boy in the fable, absolutely " eaten by lions," but he was 
killed by a stroke of the paw of one, though the blow, I 
believe, was not given in malice. I am not sure whether 
the publication of the '' Family Scapegrace " in the col- 
umns of the Journal increased its circulation, but it was 
certainly well received. Mr. William Chambers, how- 
ever, objected to it upon the ground of its " lightness," 
He would have preferred the subject of wild beasts to 
have been more "intelligently treated" — their various 
habitats to be described, and some sort of moral to be 
deduced from them ; but Robert stuck loyally to his 
young friend and his story. 

I took infinite pleasure in my editorial occupation, and 
had every reason to be content with my surroundings. 
My family, however, were delicate, the climate of Edin- 
burgh proved too vigorous for their constitutions, and 
after a year or two I was compelled to announce my 
intention of going south. Robert Chambers was so 
good as to express himself much concerned at this 
resolve, and characteristically endeavored to combat it 
upon the firm ground of science. " You talk of cold, my 
dear sir, but let me tell you that the thermal line is pre- 
cisely the same in Edinburgh as it is in London." I re- 
plied, with as great truth as modesty, that I knew nothing 
about the thermal line, but that so far as I was aware the 
east wind had never blown a four-wheeled cab over in 
London — a circumstance which happened to have just 
taken place opposite our house in Edinburgh. As he saw 
my resolution was quite fixed, he presently said, with a 
kind smile, "I am thinking of going to live in London 



A New Arrangement. 149 

myself ; suppose we go together, and you shall edit the 
Journal there instead of here ;" which struck me as a 
most excellent arrangement. The only drawback to my 
satisfaction was an undertaking I now entered into to 
confine my contributions to the Journal only. It was 
not, indeed, an unreasonable requirement on his part, 
while it was in some sort a compliment to myself ; but I 
regretted that my literary connection with Household 
Words, or rather with its chief, which had been so long 
and constant, was now to cease ; that I was no longer to 
serve under the banner of him whom Bret Harte, in the 
most imperishable of his stories, has called " The Master." 
I wrote, of course, to tell him of the arrangement. "I 
have received your letter," he replied, "with mingled 
regret and pleasure. I am heartily sorry to have lost 
you as a fellow - workman, but heartily glad to have 
gained you as a friend. ... I hope that you will both [my 
wife and myself] come and see us at Gadshill, and com- 
pare the Kentish hops and cherries with the Scottish 
peachings." 



150 Some Literary Becollections. 



Chapter VII. 

LONDON. — THE VALUE OF A TITLE. — PERSONAL NARRATIVES. — AN 
EXECUTION. — LEECH. — GILBERT A BECKETT. — JAMES WHITE. — 
READE. — TROLLOPE. — THACKERAY. —DICIiENS. 

It was ill-naturedly said by Dr. Johnson that the fin- 
est prospect that could meet the eyes of a Scotchman was 
the road to England, and, though I was no Scotchman, 
I felt something of this exhilaration of spirit as I took my 
ticket from Edinburgh to London. It was not a single 
ticket by any means, for we had a family sufficiently large 
to excuse our having a saloon carriage to ourselves ; but 
their numbers did not alarm me, for I had by that time 
not only gained a footing in literature but was confident 
of my power to climb. Though I had been born and bred 
far out of hearing of Bow Bells, and had only visited the 
metropolis occasionally, I was extremely fond of it, main- 
ly because it presents the broadest field of human life. 
Young as I was, I was already possessed with the convic- 
tion that for the calling I had chosen for myself London 
was the only place to live in, or at all events the best place ; 
and after a quarter of a century's experience I see no rea- 
son to change that opinion. The poet, the philosopher, 
and the man of science can live where they like, and pur- 
sue their studies equally well, but the novelist should re- 
side where humanity presents its most varied aspect. 

For years I studied London and the Londoners as a 
botanist studies the flora of his neighborhood, and with 
unspeakable interest and delight. I have written several 



The Value of a Name. 151 

works upon that subject only. One of them, "Meliboeus 
in London," is still a favorite, such as an author, unlike a 
father, is privileged to make of one of his own children 
without rousing the jealousy of the rest. Its publisher 
took the same view of it, and, much to his credit, always 
spoke of it in high terms, though it was, as regards the 
public favor, not so fortunate as the like offspring of the 
same pen. He ascribed its want of popularity to a cause 
which at that time I thought fanciful, but which I have 
long been persuaded was the right cause — namely, its ti- 
tle. '^ It is not everybody," he said, " who has ever heard 
of Meliboeus, and those who have not are disinclined to 
inquire for him, because they don't know how to pro- 
nounce his name." 

Even Shakespeare occasionally erred, and never more 
so than when he wrote that celebrated dictum about the 
unimportance of a name. In books it has almost the 
same weight in this country as a title has in the case of 
an individual. A good name may not be "better than 
riches " on the back of a good book, but it greatly en- 
hances its pecuniary value. The name of the author, if 
he is a popular one, is also a tower of strength. Again 
and again have well-known writers, having composed a 
work which has especially taken their fancy, attempted 
to make a new departure with it, and by publishing it 
anonymously to gain a second reputation. Bulwer, for 
example, tried it, and Trollope tried it, both with unsat- 
isfactory results. No one can afford to give up the mo- 
mentum of their popularity, and start afresh without it 
up the hill. I hope I shall not be accused of comparing 
myself with the eminent writers I have mentioned in 
stating my own experience in this way. 

Some years after I had obtained popularity, I wrote a 



152 Some Literary Recollections. 

novel which I flattered myself was of considerable merit, 
and which I knew to be at least of greater merit than 
any which had preceded it from the same hand. It was 
called "A Perfect Treasure." In order to completely 
conceal my identity, I published it at the same time, and 
from the same house, as another novel under my own 
name called "A County Family." There was no com- 
parison as to which was the better of the two books, and 
I will do the critics the justice to say that they perceived 
this. The former story was spoken of in high terms, and 
(just as I had hoped) as the production of a new author 
from whom great things were to be expected. The 
latter story was received less favorably — indeed (for 
there is a medium in all things), rather too consonantly 
with my expectations in that way. But when it came to 
balancing accounts matters were very different. "If it 
had not been for the success of the 'County Family.'" 
said the publisher, " your ' Perfect Treasure ' would have 
let us into a hole." 

The omission of the author's name was of course the 
main factor in this unlooked-for result ; but even if both 
works had been anonymous, I am convinced, from the 
attraction of its title, that the " County Family " would 
have shown a better balance than its more meritorious 
rival. Even in the case of so marvellously popular a 
writer as Dickens I have always thought that the want 
of favor with which (at starting) "Martin Chuzzlewit" 
was received was to be attributed to its infelicitous 
name. We are so accustomed nowadays to regard it as 
one of his best, if not the very best of his novels, and the 
name has been so long familiar to us, that it is difficult 
to replace ourselves in the position of having heard it for 
the first time ; but such is to my mind the explanation 



Black-mail. 153 

of what is otherwise little less than a literary phenom- 
enon. 

While on the subject of book titles, I may say that it is 
essential to choose one that has not been used before. The 
law is in this matter very unreasonable, for, while estab- 
lishing a copyright in titles, it affords no means of discov- 
ering whether the one you have decided upon is original or 
not. While compelling an author to register his book in 
Stationers' Hall, it makes no proviso for the exhibition of 
the name of the book ; and as the register — from some 
miserable economy — only shows the author's name, the 
information desired cannot be obtained. Hence proceeds 
a regular system of robbery. In the case of a known nov- 
el of course there is no difficulty; no author would take 
" Never Too Late to Mend " or '' The Woman in White" 
for his title ; but a totally unknown book may have a good 
name, which occurs quite naturally to more than one per- 
son. Who can remember the names of the still-born nov- 
els of the last forty years ? Nay, every week there ap- 
pears in the Penny Storyteller or the Penny N'ovelist some 
tale the name of which is protected by copyright. And 
what possible precaution can prevent this right being in- 
voluntarily infringed ? 

Enterprising publishers of worthless books are always 
on the lookout for a coincidence of this kind, and exact 
their black-mail from the unfortunate author. There is 
no pretence of any harm being done to them ; indeed, 
nothing but good, of course, can result to the still-born 
novel from its having the same name as a new and much 
better one; but the law is on the side of the rogues. As 
I have written many novels, and have been obliged to give 
them names, I have suffered from this sharp practice more 
than most people. I have given twenty pounds, and on 



154 Some Literary Becollections. 

one occasion even forty pounds, for the privilege of call- 
ing my own book by its own name ; but that was wheii I 
was comparatively a young writer. I should not fall so 
easy a victim to these literary brigands now. Though 
the law is, as I have said, unreasonable, the judges are not 
so, and if any such case as I have mentioned should be 
tried upon its merits I should have no fear for the result. 
A trial is the very last thing that our persecutors desire ; 
what they want is ransom. My advice to my literary 
brethren is to resist all such extortioners ; it is not nec- 
essary to be rude to them ('Hhe Court," if the case pro- 
ceeds, does not approve of that) ; instead of saying out- 
right " Go to the devil !" use a synonym: refer them to a 
solicitor. 

In a few years I knew my London better than most 
Cockneys born. On one occasion I compared my own ex- 
periences of it with those of Dickens. He told me in his 
graphic and dramatic way some amazing things, with 
some of which I, in my time, though with far inferior 
powers of narration, have occasionally thrilled a select 
audience. In return for his gold I had only silver to 
offer him ; but I remember that the following incident, 
which once happened to me, interested him very much : 

I was returning home one summer night through a 
fashionable street out of Piccadilly, when there came on a 
violent thunder-storm. It was very late ; not a cab was 
to be seen, and I stepped under a portico for shelter. 
There was a ball going on in one of the great houses in 
the street ; the drawing-room had a huge bow-window, 
which was open, and now and again figures flitted across 
it, and the dance-music made itself heard through the 
storm. I had been under my shelter some time before I 
noticed that there was another person in the street, also 



An Incident. 155 

under a portico. He was nearer to the house where the 
ball was going on than I was, but I could see him quite 
distinctly. He looked like a beggar, and was dressed in 
rags. Suddenly he ran across the street in the pouring 
rain and stood beneath the open window, at which ap- 
peared some lady in a ball-dress ; she threw out to him 
her bouquet, the gilt handle of which I saw glitter in the 
gas-light. He strove to catch it, but it fell, and I heard it 
clang upon the pavement. He picked it up, nodded twice 
to the lady at the window, and then ran off at full speed. 
The whole thing took only a few seconds, but made a pict- 
ure that I shall never forget. 

I took it for granted that the man was her lover, and 
expressed to Dickens my astonishment at the perfection 
of the man's disguise. 

" No," he said, as though the facts were all before him, 
"he was not her lover; he was merely a messenger wait- 
ing for the bouquet to be thrown to him — a signal that 
had been agreed upon beforehand." 

This conclusion 1 believe to have been the correct one ; 
but I had forgotten, as usual, the precise date of the oc- 
currence, and was therefore unable to discover from the 
newspapers whether any " incident in high life" took place 
about the same time. 

There was another experience of mine, which I should 
have narrated earlier, but which I now remember in con- 
nection with Dickens, for it especially tickled him. Speak- 
ing of the deep and narrow grooves in which life runs, and 
of the impossibility of its wheels ever getting out of them 
into other grooves, I told him the following anecdote: 

When I was quite a boy I happened to sit at a luncheon- 
table between a lady of literary instincts and a sporting 
captain who was anxious to ingratiate himself with her — 



156 Some Literary Recollections. 

only, unhappily, they had not a single interest in common. 
At last he thought he had found one. 

" Sad thing, Miss B ,^' he suddenly remarked, " about 

poor Sam Rogers." 

A robbery had just occurred at Rogers's bank, resulting 
in the loss of a very large sum of money. 

" Yes, indeed," returned the young lady, sympathizing- 
ly; "however, it won't ruin him." 

"Well, I don't know — not so sure of that," said the 
captain, pulling doubtfully at his mustache. 

"It's a great blow, no doubt ; but Rogers is very rich." 

"I think you are mistaken there," he put in, "though I 
dare say he has feathered his nest pretty well. It is a 
serious thing his being forbidden to ride for two years." 

"Forbidden to ride !" ejaculated the young lady, laying 
down her knife and fork in sheer astonishment. "Why 
shouldn't he ride ?" 

" Well, because of what he has done, you know. The 
Jockey Club has suspended him." 

" The Jockey Club ! Whom on earth. Captain L , 

can you be talking about ?" 

" Why, about Sam Rogers, of course. Did I not say 
Sam Rogers — Sam Rogers the Jockey ?" 

A more complete example of cross-purposes probably 
never occurred. 

It so struck Dickens's fancy that I should not have been 
surprised had he made some literary use of it ; but he had 
a very delicate sense of copyright, and probably thought 
that I might use it myself. It has always been a satis- 
faction to me, however, to believe that certain incidents I 
communicated to him, which had come within my private 
experience — and were therefore tahoo so far as my own 
pen was concerned — were made excellent use of in " Great 



The Cruel. 157 

Expectations," where Miss Haversham appears for the 
second time to my eyes, as large as life indeed, but not 
one whit exaggerated. 

In pursuit of my profession in town (for certainly I 
had no natural liking for such sights) I went to see the 
execution of the five pirates of the "Flowery Land." 
There was nothing in their case to excite pity. They 
had, without provocation, cast their captain and officers 
into the sea, and thrown champagne bottles at them while 
they were drowning. They were not, I am glad to say. 
Englishmen (they were natives of Manila), but even if 
they had been I should have been in no way distressed at 
their fate. 

Considering the universal unhappiness caused by the 
Cruel, one would be amazed that they are so lightly dealt 
with but for the reflection that our laws are made by 
those who do not suffer from their outrages. The life- 
long miseries they inflict upon those about them — defence- 
less women and children — are often far worse' than mur- 
der ; and when they culminate in that crime it is almost 
a matter for congratulation, for the victim then is freed 
and the villain at last is hung. I have no sympathy what- 
ever with the spurious philanthropy that would keep such 
wretches alive to be a curse to their fellow - creatures, 
but I am rejoiced that the just punishment of their bru- 
tality is no longer a public spectacle. The worst part of 
the execution to which I refer was not the hanging of 
the criminals, but the behavior of the mob, to whom it 
was certainly no "moral lesson." Like Lord Tomnoddy 
I took a room with some friends (for which we paid 
twenty guineas) to see the sight. My description of it 
was thought too realistic for the Journal^ and, as at 
that date I had undertaken to write for no other period- 



158 Some Literary Recollections. 

ical, it did not appear elsewhere. It is true it was after- 
wards published, but in an expensive form, and had few 
readers ; and, as public executions have long been things 
of the past, I give a short extract from it : 

"At three o'clock or thereabouts there was heard a 
rumbling of some heavy carriage, and there broke forth a 
horrid yell, half cheer, half groan, from the people with- 
out. This was the arrival of the scaffold, a mere block of 
wood (to all appearance), painted black and drawn by 
three cart-horses. Then there ensued a horrid knocking, 
compared with which the knocking in 'Macbeth' was but 
as the summons of a fashionable footman ; they were 
putting up the gallows. By this time the snow had be- 
gun to fall, flake by flake, but without diminishing the 
concourse ; on the contrary, it grew and grew, so that the 
dawn presently broke upon a pavement of human heads 
extending as far as the eye could reach. Hats, because 
they obstructed the view, were not permitted, and the 
effect of this sumptuary law was certainly picturesque. 
Those who had been deprived of their head-gear had sub- 
stituted for it party - colored handkerchiefs, while caps 
of every hue made the shifting scene like a pattern in 
a kaleidoscope. Bakers' white caps, soldiers' blue caps, 
provident persons' nightcaps, and chimney-sweepers' black 
caps were now become very numerous, and the mass of 
mere thieves and ruffians only leavened the multitude in- 
stead of forming its sole constituents. The chimney-sweep- 
ers were extremely popular, and encouraged to beat one 
another, so that the soot should fly freely upon their 
neighbors ; and the military were so far respected that I 
never saw one of them pushed up from the surging crowd 
and rolled lengthways over the heads of the company, 
to which the members of all other professions were con- 



A Moral Lesson. 159 

tinually subjected. Many gentlemen of volatile disposi- 
tions (and of physical strength enough to insure impunity) 
would themselves leap upon the shoulders of those about 
them and run along upon all fours on the surface of the 
crowd ; and nobody seemed to resent it, even including the 
softer sex, except now and then a personal friend, who 
seemed to consider it as a liberty, although perfectly al- 
lowable in the case of strangers. 

" I am sorry to say there were many women, although 
in no greater proportion to the males than one to ten. 
They were mostly young girls, who took no part in the 
rough amusements of their neighbors, unless under com- 
pulsion, but kept their gaze fixed on the Debtors' Door. 
One in particular, with roses in her bonnet, and cruel eyes, 
never looked anywhere else ; she reminded me horribly of 
the girl in Bulwer's ^ Last Days of Pompeii ' who was so 
greedy to see the man devoured by the wild beast. No 
touch of pity, or even of awe, could be read in any counte- 
nance. When a black cloth, some two feet high, was 
placed round the edge of the scaffold, there was a yell of 
impotent rage, because a portion of the sight — the lower- 
ing of the dead bodies into their coffins — would be there- 
by lost to them. They cheered the hangman, when he 
came out to adjust the ropes, as the herald of their com- 
ing treat ; they grew impatient as the clock grew near 
the stroke of eight, and some called 'Time !' I am afraid 
an idea crossed my mind that if all the people there pres- 
ent (except those at the windows) could be put out of the 
way, like those whose last agonies they had come to see, 
it would be no great loss. 

"It is not eight o'clock, but it is very near. A little 
dog in danger of being trodden to death is rescued by 
the police amid approbation, and placed in safety upon 



IGO Some Literary Eecollections. 

the pitching-block — where the porters rest their burdens 
— at the top of the street. That is a good sign ; perhaps 
it is better to pity dogs than murderers. St. Sepulchre's 
bell begins to toll, although the inarticulate roar of voices 
almost drowns its solemn boom ; there is a sharp and sud- 
den cry of ^Hats oflE !' and the party-colored carpet shows 
like a white sheet instantly. Where the barriers are not, 
in Newgate Street, the concourse bends and swells like 
the waves of a stormy sea ; and where the barriers are, 
they are only distinguishable by their living burdens. 
There is a dreadful thronging of oiBcials at the prison- 
door, and five men are brought forth, one after another, 
to be strangled. 

"Let us turn our backs upon that scene, my friends, if 
you please, and look rather upon the forty thousand ea- 
ger faces receiving their moral lesson. They are not so im- 
pressed as to be silent — no, not for one instant — ^but emit 
a certain purring satisfaction, like that of a cat over its 
prey. Then a hiss breaks forth, and here and there the 
word ^ cur ' is heard — that is because one of the wretched 
victims has fainted, and must needs be seated in a chair — 
and then there is a tempest of applause because the fifth 
man goes to his doom with as jaunty an air as his pinioned 
arms will permit. The priest is speaking the last few 
words that these wretches shall hear from mortal tongue; 
they are kissing (through those terrible caps) the crucifix 
he holds in his hand, and in a few seconds they will have 
crossed the threshold of life and entered upon the myste- 
ries of eternity. Surely if the moral lesson is to give any 
visible sign of its working it must be now. It gives no 
sign whatever. The babblement never ceases ; there is 
no hush, no reverence, no fear. Only after a certain 
dreadful grinding noise — which is the fall of the drop — a 



A Reprieve and Us Effect 161 

flood of uproar suddenly bursts forth^ which must have 
been pent up before. This, the truth is, is the collective 
voice of the Curious, the Fast, the Vicious, spellbound 
for a little by the awful spectacle, while the ceaseless 
though lesser din arises from the professional scoundrels, 
the thieves in esse, the murderers in posse, who are im- 
pressed by nothing save the touch of the fatal slipknot 
under their own right ears. Singularly enough, the crowd 
increased after the execution, persons of delicate temper- 
ament joining it, I suppose, who had not nerve enough for 
a hanging, but who knew how to appreciate a cutting 
down." 

It has often been said that Dickens was in favor of the 
abolition of capital punishment. It was certainly not the 
case at this date, nor do I believe it ever was, though he 
wrote strongly against public executions. Speaking of 
the villanous crew of the " Flowery Land," he told me 
that the sheriff had given him a very characteristic ac- 
count of them. There had been originally seven con- 
demned to death, but two were reprieved. Reprieved 
criminals are generally much affected, and the fact of 
their escape is broken to them with great care by the 
officials. In this case, when the two men were told they 
were not to be hung, one received the news with total 
apathy, but the other with great vivacity exclaimed, 
" Then can I have Antonio's shoes " (Antonio was one of 
his less fortunate friends), " because they exactly fit me ?" 

Dickens had been present at the execution of Mrs. 
Manning, and knew something of the lady. With the 
exception of Mrs. Brownrigg she was perhaps the wicked- 
est of her sex ; but she had her attractions. He told me 
that when arrested in Edinburgh she so worked upon the 
feelings of the police-officer that accompanied her in the 



162 Some Literary Recollections. 

train to town — though he was an elderly man with a 
family — that he could never forgive himself the hand he 
had in her subsequent fate, and that when she was exe- 
cuted he committed suicide. The effigy of her in Ma- 
dame Tussaud's, in Baker Street, was very like, and I went 
to see it in consequence. The great annual cattle-show 
was being held under the same roof, and I remember — 
such was my eye to " copy " at that time — that I wrote 
an account of both exhibitions on the occasion, under the 
not inappropriate title of " Wax and Tallow." 

It was about this period that the " Comic History of 
England " was being published, with its admirable illus- 
trations by Leech. I often met that artist — a gentle, 
pleasant fellow, beloved by all who knew him, but cer- 
tainly one who disappointed expectation in the way of 
comedy. He was very silent, and his air was generally 
one of settled gloom. He was, no doubt, however, a great 
observer, and when he heard a lively story that " lent it- 
self " to illustration, he would sometimes inquire '^ wheth- 
er it was copyright." 

Gilbert a Beckett I only met once, at a little dinner- 
party given by one of the founders of Punch ; his talk 
was very entertaining and characteristic. There was 
some guava- jelly at dessert, which pleased my youthful 
palate. "I am glad you like it," said my hostess. ^' We 
rather plume ourselves upon it. Some people make it of 
apple and call it guava ; they think there is no harm in 
a false name." 

" You should rather say an appellation," murmured a 
Beckett. 

The Rev. James White I have already mentioned. I 
had known him in my boyhood, at Shanklin, where we 
used to crack jokes together, though mine of course were 



James White. 163 

hazel-nuts (and often with nothing in them), while his 
were from the cocoa-tree. He had a kindly as well as a 
humorous nature, and protected me from the many snubs 
(I dare say well deserved) which my precocity evoked 
from my elders. Detraction, flickering with its serpent 
tongue, went so far as to say that he spoiled me ; a state- 
ment which bore falsehood on the face of it. He was the 
first man I knew who was intimate with literary men, 
and who told me anecdotes about them. He was a great 
friend of Dickens and of Tennyson. I remember his re- 
citing to me a sonnet the latter had written, describing a 
sail he and White and Peel (the author of " The Fair Isl- 
and") took together one day. Respect for the laws of 
copyright, and also my forgetfulness of all the lines but 
one, prevent my quoting the entire poem ; but the first 
line, I remember, ran thus : 

*' Two poets and a mighty dramatist," 

at the utterance of which last word he struck his breast 
theatrically and observed, parenthetically, " That's me^ 
young gentleman." Indeed, White's dramas from Scot- 
tish history were of great merit, and one of them, '^ The 
King of the Commons," was played by Macready (at the 
Princess's) with great success. He also wrote "The 
Landmarks of English History," "Eighteen Christian 
Centuries," and a very good "History of France." I 
have heard that when at Oxford, though too lazy to write 
for "the Newdigate," he converted in a single evening 
the severely classical poem that gained the prize into 
something, if not superior, at all events very different, 
by interpolating alternate lines of the most humorous 
character ; and the high spirits of his youth very fre- 
quently asserted themselves in maturity. \ remember 



^64 Some Liter a/ry Recollections. 

his reproving a very talkative young woman for her gar- 
rulity at the same time that he corrected her grammar. 
They were going into dinner one day, and he expressed 
his hope that she had a good appetite. 

^'I always have," she said; '' my motto is toujoitrs pret.'^^ 

" It should be toujoiirs prete^ my dear," was her com- 
panion's reply. 

He was an excellent story-teller, and I well remember 
his describing to me a particular evening with Douglas 
Jerrold and some social wits which made me yearn to be 
in such company. It was at the time of some threatened 
French invasion, and one man (he told me) announced 
his intention of " locking himself in the cellar and arming 
himself with a corkscrew;" another, who had taken a suf- 
ficiency of champagne, of "joining the Toxopholite Socie- 
ty ;" whereupon Jerrold flashed out, like a rapier from its 
sheath, that the i^itoxopholite Society would better suit 
him. 

The novelist last taken from us, Charles Reade, I saw 
less of than of his literary brethren. My acquaintance 
with him did not begin till his infirmity of deafness had 
grown to be a source of much inconvenience to him ; but 
it certainly had not the effect, often attributed to it, of 
making him impatient or morose. His hollowed hand and 
smiling, attentive face are always present in the picture 
which my memory draws of him. He expressed himself 
very strongly upon matters in which his feelings were 
moved, but they were always moved in the right direc- 
tion, and though, when contending with an adversary on 
paper, he did not use the feather end of his pen, his heart 
was as soft as a woman's. He was never moved by those 
petty jealousies which (with little reason, so far as my ex- 
perience goes) are attributed to his craft, and the last time 



JReade. — Lever, 165 

he spoke to me on literary subjects was in praise of one 
who might well have been considered a rival — Wilkie 
Collins. ^'I can imagine," he said, "that his work fails 
to appeal to some people, otherwise good judges, but he 
is a great artist." 

The last time I saw him he was painfully ascending the 
stairs of the London Library, looking very old and ill. I 
waited for him on the landing, where he noticed some 
books in my hand which I was carrying away for a pro- 
fessional purpose. 

" How hard you work !" he said ; then added, with pa- 
thos, " so did I at your age." 

His tone and manner recalled to me those of another 
and greater writer on an occasion when I was instancing to 
him Walter Scott's inability to compose when he wished 
to do so, and his bursting into tears in consequence, as 
the most pathetic incident in the annals of literature. 
"For God's sake don't talk of it !" he said ; "it is what 
we must all come to." But he never did come to it, never- 
theless. 

Lever I met very seldom, and never when he was at his 
best. He had fallen into ill - health and premature old 
age. Yet at times he was a charming companion ; not a 
conversationalist, but an admirable raconteur. When once 
set agoing he fairly bubbled over with good stories ; but 
they were for the most part L'ish, and 'connected with old 
times. He had lived so long out of England that he was 
not en rapport with people and things of the day. His 
nature was as genial and careless as that of the heroes of 
his earlier books, and he had no notion of practical affairs 
even when connected with his own calling. He told me, 
only a few years before his death, that he had never re- 
ceived sixpence from the sale of his advanced sheets any- 



166 Some Literary Becollections. 

where. To me, whom circumstances compelled to look 
after such matters pretty keenly, and who, if I had not 
" surveyed mankind from China to Peru " with an eye to 
advanced sheets, had '' placed " them on occasion even in 
Japan (at Yokohama), this neglect appeared inexplicable. 
It is probable that his publishers made these outside ar- 
rangements for him, and took them into account in their 
transactions with him. In Trollope's case, who told me 
almost the same thing — " I never got a farthing from the 
Americans," he said, "save £50 for ^ Ayala's Angel'" — 
it seems certain that he labored under the same mistake ; 
a far more extraordinary one for hitn to make, who plumed 
himself upon his business habits, than for Lever. It may 
be of interest to the public (as it certainly will be to the 
budding novelist) to learn that the serial works of our 
popular writers appear coincidently not only in America 
but in many of our colonies.* Australia is the most liber- 
al and enterprising in this respect, and Canada (a fact 
which is partly explained by its being overshadowed by 
the Great Republic) the least. The works of our story- 
tellers are also to be found in every European tongue. 

* The following case, by no means an uncommon one, illustrates the 
system of " distribution " as regards fiction which now prevails. A novel 
is published in serial by a " syndicate " of eight or ten provincial newspa- 
pers, the Saturday issues of which (in which it appears) have an average 
circulation say of 25,000. The novel simultaneously appears in America 
and Australia, say in Harper^s Weekly and the Australasian^ which have 
both immense circulations. This gives at least 800,000 buyers ; but it is 
calculated, with good reason, taking into account the famil}^ the club, the 
mechanics' institute, and friends to whom the novel may be lent, that there 
are six readers for every buyer. Thus the readers of the popular novelist 
of to-day may literally be reckoned by millions. Moreover, this does not 
include the readers of the various editions of the book itself, or of its 
translations. 



Baron Tauchnitz. 167 

With Russia, Holland, and Sweden there is, however, no 
international copyright, so that nothing is to be got out 
of them but thanks and fame ; and with France and Italy, 
although there is a treaty, there might almost as well not 
be one, so far as any material benefit to the English au- 
thor is concerned. Germany, however, though poor, is 
honest, and sends some slight contribution to the British 
author's purse in return for the right of translation. 

The edition of Baron Tauchnitz, which is of course in 
English, is quite another affair. There is a notion abroad 
— or rather at home — that the Baron does not purchase 
the works he publishes in his Continental series. This 
is a gross mistake. He did so even when there was no 
necessity (i. 6., when there was no copyright treaty, as he 
does now in the case of American authors), and I have 
always found him to be not only an honorable but a most 
liberal paymaster. 

Trollope was the least literary man of letters I ever 
met ; indeed, had I not known him for the large-hearted 
and natural man he was, I should have suspected him 
of some affectation in this respect. Though he certainly 
took pleasure in writing novels, I doubt whether he took 
any in reading them; and from his conversation, quite as 
much as from his own remarks on the subject in his auto- 
biography, I should judge he had not read a dozen, even 
of Dickens's, in his life. His manners were rough and, 
so to speak, tumultuous, but he had a tender heart and 
a strong sense of duty. He has done his literary repu- 
tation as much harm by the revelation of his method of 
work as by his material views of its result. He took al- 
most a savage pleasure in demolishing the theory of " in- 
spiration," which has caused the world to deny his " gen- 
ius ;" but although he was the last, and a long way the 



168 Some Literary Recollections. 

last, of the great triumvirate of modern novelists (for 
Bulwer is not to be named in the same breath, and George 
Eliot stands per se), he hangs " on the line " with them. 

If I may venture to express my own opinion upon a 
matter to which I have at least given more attention than 
most people, there seems to me this noteworthy difference 
between the above-named three authors and their liv- 
ing contemporaries : the characters they have drawn are 
more individualized. Dick Swiveller, Colonel Newcome, 
and Mrs. Proudie, for example, are people we know and 
speak of as having had a real existence. The works of 
other novelists are (with certain exceptions, however, for 
who does not recall Count Fosco ?) known by their names 
rather than by the characters they have created. 

I take, merely as a specimen (and I trust Mr. Black- 
more will forgive me for so doing), that admirable ro- 
mance "Lorna Doone ;" none of the three men we are 
considering could have written it to save their lives, yet 
I doubt whether ten of the thousands of readers who 
have delighted in it could give the names of its dramatis 
personce. There is nothing so cheap (and nasty) as de- 
traction; and in stating this opinion, detraction is the last 
thing. Heaven knows, which I wish to convey. I have 
the heartiest contempt for that school of criticasters (as 
Charles Reade called them) who are always praising the 
dead at the expense of the living ; and there are probably 
few readers who take such pleasure in the works of liv- 
ing writers as I do. There is, I readily admit, more poe- 
try and natural truth in some of them than in Dick- 
ens ; more dramatic interest than in Thackeray ; more 
humor and pathos than in Trollope ; but, to my mind, 
the individualism of character is much less marked than 
in those three authors. 



ThackeroAj, 169 

I first saw Thackeray at the house of my brother-in- 
law,* with whom I was then staying in Gloucester Place; 
they had lived together as young men at Weimar, but 
had never seen one another since, and their meeting was 
very interesting. Their lines in life had been very differ- 
ent, but the recollection of old times drew them together 
closely. A curious and characteristic thing happened on 
the occasion in question. There were a dozen people or 
so at dinner, all unknown to Thackeray, but he was in 
good spirits and made himself very agreeable. It disap- 
pointed me excessively when, immediately after dinner, 
he informed me that he had a most particular engage- 
ment, and was about to wish good -night to his host. 
'^But will you not even smoke a cigar first?" I inquired. 
"A cigar ? Oh, they smoke here, do they? Well, to tell 
you the truth, that was my engagement," and he remained 
for many hours. There was an ancient gentleman at ta- 
ble who had greatly distinguished himself half a century 
ago at college, by whom the novelist was much attracted, 
and especially when he told him that there was nothing 
really original in modern literature; everything, he said, 
came indirectly (more or less) from — I think he said — 
Pindar. 

'^ But at all events Pindar did not write ' Vanity Fair,' " 
I said. 

" Yes, sir," answered the old gentleman, " he did. In 
the highest and noblest sense Pindar did write it." 

This view of affairs, which was quite new to him, de- 
lighted Thackeray, who was so pleased with his evening 
that he invited the whole company — fourteen in all — to 

* Major Prower. At his home, Purton House, in Wiltshire, I spent 
many of the happiest days of my early life ; would that his eye could 
note the acknowledgment ! 

8 ' 



170 Some Literary Becollections, 

dine with him the next day. I mention the circumstance 
not only as being a humorous thing in itself, but as illus- 
trative of a certain boyish and impulsive strain that there 
was in his nature. He told me afterwards that when he 
subsequently went to the club that night he had felt so 
dangerously hospitable that it was all he could do to prevent 
himself "asking some more people ;" and as a matter-of- 
fact he did ask two other guests. He had been very mod- 
erate as to wine-drinking, and was only carried away by 
a spirit of geniality, w^hich now and then overmastered 
him. The guests who had so much taken his fancy — or 
perhaps it was only the ancient Classic, whom he could 
not well have invited without the others — were of course 
delighted with their invitation, but many of them had 
scruples about accepting it. They called the next after- 
noon in pairs to know " what we were going to do about 
it," and "whether we thought Mr. Thackeray had really 
meant it." For my part, I said I should go if I went 
alone ; and go we did. An excellent dinner we got, not- 
withstanding the shortness of the notice ; nor in our kind 
hostess's manner could be detected the least surprise at 
what must nevertheless have seemed a somewhat un- 
looked-for incursion. 

TroUope has been hard on Thackeray — just as the pub- 
lic have been hard on Trollope — because his mode of com- 
position did not chime in with his own, and was indeed 
diametrically opposite. Thackeray's habits were anything 
but methodical, and he found the duties of editorship es- 
pecially irksome. Communications from his contributors, 
and especially the would-be ones, annoyed and even dis- 
tressed him to an almost incredible degree. I remember 
his complaining of one of them with a vigor and irritation 
which amused me exceedingly. A young fellow had sent 



An U7igrateful Contributor. 171 

him a long story, for which he demanded particular atten- 
tion "from the greatest of novelists," upon the ground 
that he had a sick sister entirely dependent upon him for 
support. Thackeray was touched by the appeal, and, con- 
trary to his custom, wrote his correspondent a long letter 
of advice, enclosing also (which was by no means con- 
trary to his custom) some pecuniary assistance. " I feel 
for your position," he said, " and appreciate your motive 
for exertion ; but I must tell you at once that you will 
never do anything in literature. Your contribution is 
worthless in every way, and it is the truest kindness, both 
to her for whom you are working and to yourself, to tell 
you so outright. Turn your mind at once to some other 
industry." 

This produced a reply from the young gentleman which 
astonished Thackeray a great deal more than it did me. 
It was couched in the most offensive terms conceivable, 
and ended by telling "the greatest of novelists" that, 
though he had attained by good -luck "the top of the 
tree, he would one day find himself, where he deserved 
to be, at the bottom of it." 

" For my part," said Thackeray (upon my showing some 
premonitory symptoms of suffocation), "I see little to 
laugh at. What a stupid, ungrateful beast the man must 
be ! and if ever I waste another half hour again in writing to 
a creature of that sort 'call me horse,' or worse." He was 
not so accustomed to the vagaries of rejected contributors 
as I was. ♦ 

Though the views of life entertained by Dickens and 
Thackeray were as different as the poles, it has always 
been the fashion to draw comparisons between them ; 
some disciples of the latter have even thought they did 
their master honor by speaking of Dickens as his rival and 



172 Some Literary Becollections. 

then depreciating him. I wonder whether these gentry 
knew what Thackeray really thought of Dickens's genius. 
They certainly could hardly have read what he wrote of 
it, and especially of the pathetic side of it. 

''And now," says Thackeray (I think in his "Box of 
Christmas Books "), " there is but one book left in the box, 
the smallest one ; but oh, how much the best of all ! It 
is the work of the master of all English humorists now 
alive — the young man who came and took his place calmly 
at the head of the whole tribe, and who has kept it. 
Think of all we owe him — the store of happy hours that 
he has made us pass ; the kindly and pleasant companions 
whom he has introduced to us ; the harmless laughter, the 
genial wit, the frank, manly love he has taught us to feel. 
Every month of these years has brought us some kind 
token from this delightful genius. . . . What books have 
appeared that have taken so affectionate a hold of our 
English public as his ?" 

Of the "Carol" he wrote : "Who can listen to objec- 
tions regarding such a book as this ? It seems to me a 
national benefit, and to every man and woman who reads 
it a personal kindness. The last two people I heard speak 
of it were women ; neither knew the other or the author, 
and both said, by way of criticism, ' God bless him !' . . . 
As for Tiny Tim, there is a certain passage in the book 
regarding that young gentleman about which a man 
should hardly speak in print, or in public, any more 
than he would of any other affliction of his private heart. 
There is not a reader in England but that little creature 
will be a bond of union between the author and him ; and 
he will say of Charles Dickens, as the women did just 
now, ' God bless him !' What a feeling is this for a writ- 
er to be able to inspire, and what a reward to reap !" 



ThacJceray on Dickens. 173 

Lest it should be imagined that this opinion of Thack- 
eray's respecting the merits of his great contemporary was 
extorted by his admiration of his " Christmas Books" alone, 
or was expressed upon his earlier writings only, I append 
a much later and less known criticism to the same effect : 

" As for the charities of Mr. Dickens, multiplied kind- 
nesses which he has conferred upon us all, upon our chil- 
dren, upon people educated and uneducated, upon the 
myriads who speak our common tongue, have not you, 
have not I, all of us, reason to be thankful to this kind 
friend who so often cheered so many hours, brought pleas- 
ure and sweet laughter to so many homes, made such mul- 
titudes of children happy, endowed us with such a sweet 
store of gracious thoughts, fair fancies, soft sympathies, 
hearty enjoyments? I may quarrel with Mr. Dickens's 
art a thousand and a thousand times ; I delight and won- 
der at his genius. I recognize it — I speak with awe and 
reverence — a commission from that Divine Beneficence 
whose blessed task we know it will one day be to wipe 
every tear from every eye. Thankfully I take my share of 
the feast of love and kindness which this noble and gen- 
erous and charitable soul has contributed to the happiness 
of the world. I take and enjoy my share, and say a ben- 
ediction for the meal." 

I should especially recommend this criticism to "the 
drawing-rooms and the clubs" — the people who don't think 
and the people who don't feel — when they are inclined to 
speak of Dickens's " morbid sentimentality," 

While I am upon this subject, I cannot refrain from 
saying a word or two about the insolence, not of the crit- 
ics — for I have already expressed my high opinion both 
of their ability and their appreciativeness — but of a cer- 
tain class of amateur critics in relation to fiction. "Ev- 



174 Some Literary Becollections. 

ery one can poke a fire and drive a gig," and, it would also 
seem, can criticise a novel. "Although," says Miss Aus- 
ten, speaking of her own trade, "our productions have af- 
forded more extensive and unaffected pleasure than those 
of any other literary corporation in the world, no species 
of composition has been so much decried. From pride, 
ignorance, and fashion our foes are almost as many as our 
readers, and while the abilities of the nine hundred and 
ninety-ninth abridger of the History of England are eu- 
logized by a thousand pens, there seems a general agree- 
ment to slight the performances which have only genius, 
wit, and taste to recommend them." 

Novelists are certainly not " slighted " now, but " the 
nine hundred and ninety-ninth abridger," or any one else 
who has distinguished himself in quite another line of lit- 
erature, thinks himself qualified to sit in judgment upon 
the genius of Dickens. Only a few months ago I read a 
criticism (as I suppose he would call it) from a person of 
this kind, to whom no one ever imputed the possession of 
a single grain of humor or pathos, which may well serve 
as a warning to all such trespassers upon a domain of 
which they know absolutely nothing. '' I could never 
read Dickens with any pleasure," he candidly confesses, 
without the least consciousness of writing himself down 
an ass ; and then he proceeds to discuss his works. Of 
course there are many intelligent persons to whom the pow- 
er of appreciating fiction of any kind is denied ; what is 
amazing is that they should rush into print to say so. Their 
opinion should be entertained in silence, or expressed to 
their friends as it were in camera,^ so that the fact of their 
intellectual incompetency should be concealed. What 
Thackeray — a well-qualified critic indeed — wrote of Dick- 
ens he also certainly felt. I had once a long conversa- 



Reconciled. 175 

tion with him upon the subject; it was before the shad- 
ow (cast by a trivial matter after all) had come between 
them, but I am sure that would not have altered his opin- 
ion. Of course there were some points on which he was 
less enthusiastic than on others ; the height of the liter- 
ary pedestal on which Dickens stood was, he thought, for 
some reasons, to be deplored for his own sake. " There 
is nobody to tell him when anything goes wrong," he 
said ; " Dickens is the Sultan, and Wills is his Grand 
Vizier ;" but, on the whole, his praise was as great as it 
was generous. 

It is a satisfaction to me to remember that our two 
great novelists became friends again before death took all 
that it could take of one of them away. I walked back 
with the survivor from the other's funeral at Kensal 
Green, and from what Dickens said on that occasion — 
though the touching " In Memoriam " from his pen in the 
Cornhill was proof sufficient — I can bear witness to the 
fact. 



176 Some Literary Becollections. 



Chapter VIIL 

publishers and authors.— anonymous publications. — liter- 
ary gains.— two impostors.— whist.— fame. 

I WAS thirty-two years of age, and had written many 
books and a very large number of miscellaneous articles, 
before I made my first success in literature. I had ad- 
vanced, I think, as regards the art of story-telling, and 
certainly in public favor, but only in a moderate way. 
There had been no " leaps and bounds " in my progress ; 
but the appearance of " Lost Sir Massingberd " was an 
epoch in my literary life. The idea (as I have mentioned 
elsewhere) occurred to me on the top of a coach ; and it 
was the best day's journey I ever took. The story ap- 
peared, of course, in the Journal, and very largely in- 
creased its circulation. Its proprietors — for in such a 
case it would be ungenerous to dissociate them — behaved 
with great liberality towards me. I mention the matter 
(though some may consider it a private one) not only be- 
cause it reflects credit on the firm in question, but because 
it casts some light on the relation between publishers and 
authors generally. There is a notion abroad that the lat- 
ter are almost invariably the victims of the former, and 
that, while Justice has but a legal foothold in Paternoster 
Row, Generosity has none at all. My experience, which 
on such matters is probably as large as that of any man 
alive, is to the contrary of all this. There are bad pub- 
lishers, of course — skinflints (" scaly varmints," as a cab- 



Publishers. 177 

driver once called a friend of mine, who was so delighted 
with the term that he at once gave him half a sovereign) — 
but in what other profession are such characters unknown ? 
I have met with some sharp practice with publishers my- 
self, and have never hesitated to say so, or to give piquan- 
cy to the narrative by the disclosure of their names ; but 
such experiences have been quite exceptional. Upon 
the whole I am convinced that I have been handsomely 
treated. 

Talking of this subject upon one occasion with a broth- 
er novelist, he gave me the following extract from his 
literary note-book. "My first work," he said, "was pub- 
lished by Blank & Co., who gave me a decent sum for 
the first edition, not one-half of which was sold. When 
I became popular I disposed of the copyright of the vol- 
ume elsewhere, and feeling indebted to them for their 
liberality, and also sorry for their loss, I sent them half 
the money I received for the book. You never saw such 
a letter as Blank sent me. One would have thought I 
had given him a fortune instead of only a small portion 
of what I had lost him. He could not have expressed 
more astonishment if it had dropped from the clouds." 

I have no doubt Mr. Blank was very much astonished. 
And yet it is far from uncommon for publishers to give 
very considerable sums to successful authors beyond 
what they have bargained for. Of course it may be 
urged — for there are some people who never will give 
the devil his due — that this has been done as a retaining 
fee in order to keep their clients. I can only say that I 
have known cases where such a motive could not possibly 
have been imputed, and as they have happened, among 
others, to myself, I may venture to be quite positive upon 
the point. 



178 Some Literary Recollections. 

While upon the subject of publishers, I will narrate a 
story told me by one of that useful and innocuous class 
called Readers. He was in the great house of Paternos- 
ter, Row & Co., but (one cannot but think fortunately 
for him) Row was dead. One day my friend received 
one of those charming brochures so common nowadays, 
full of ill-natured gossip about literature and its disciples. 
Among other disagreeable things, it said that that emi- 
nently successful Avork, ^'Disloyala; or. The Doubtful 
Priest," which had run through fifty editions, had been 
rejected by his house some years ago. He showed this 
libel, with much indignation, to his friend and employer, 
Mr. Paternoster. 

"Is not this," he cried, "an infamous statement?" 

"What does it matter?" was the quiet reply; 'Hhis 
sort of gentleman will say anything." 

" But I really can't stand it," persisted the Reader. " It 
is a gross libel upon us both, but especially upon me ; I 
shall write to the man and give him a piece of my mind." 

" I wouldn't do that if I were you," said Mr. Paternos- 
ter, still more quietly than before. 

" But why not ? I really must — " 

There was a twinkle in Mr. Paternoster's eye, and a 
smile at the extreme corners of his mouth, which attracted 
the other's attention and interrupted his eloquence. 

" Is there any reason why I should not contradict this 
man ?" 

" Well, yes ; the fact is we did reject the book." 

" What ? Do you mean to say I rejected 'Disloyala ?' " 

" I am afraid so ; at all events we did it among us. I 
don't blame you ; I think it even now a dullish book." 

"And you never told me — never let fall a word of it 
all these years ?" ' 



First Book. 179 

"Certainly not. I thought it might distress you. I 
should not have told you now, but that I was taken una- 
wares." 

This, to my mind, is one of the prettiest stories I have 
ever heard. I should like to see the General who could 
be equally reticent when the Chief of his Intelligence 
Department had omitted a precaution that would have 
secured him a victory ; or the Solicitor who had lost his 
cause through the neglect of his Counsel ; or the Poli- 
tician who had missed his point in the House through 
the shortcoming of his Secretary. Yet Mr. Paternoster 
was a publisher — one of that fraternity who, if we are 
to believe some people, are incapable of a generosity. 
For my part (who have collected a considerable number 
of anecdotes of the human race) I have never heard a 
more creditable story, even of a Divine. 

Dissatisfaction with honest publishers indeed rarely 
takes place, except with very young authors. These 
have great confidence in their own work, and when it 
does not succeed are prone to blame everybody but them- 
selves. But the fact is, even if a new book is a good 
book, it is very rarely successful. To make it known to 
the public requires advertising, and that process is expen- 
sive, and soon swallows up a small profit, even if profit is 
made. Upon the whole it behooves the young author to 
look upon his first venture as itself an advertisement, and 
not reckon to make his fortune by it. And yet if it be 
successful, even if it does not "pay" (for the things are 
quite compatible), it may really make his fortune ; for it 
paves the way (although not with gold) for its successor. 
My own experience of this matter has been already nar- 
rated. I had very good reason to be satisfied with my 
first production, though it was a pecuniary loss. On the 



180 Borne Literary Recollections. 

other hand, I did not achieve by it any sudden reputa- 
tion. 

" Lost Sir Massingberd " was, I think, my fourth book ; 
from that time my position as a story-writer was secure, 
and I began to receive considerable sums for my books. 
Even then, however, my progress, though always upward, 
was slow, and it must have been at least ten years before 
I reached those "four figures" which are supposed in 
the literary market to indicate the position of the "pop- 
ular author." After that things bettered with me, and 
much more rapidly. But what a beggarly account do the 
profits of literature present beside those of successful 
men at the bar, in medicine, or in trade ! The most pop- 
ular novelist alive does not realize per annum what is 
every year pocketed by a second-rate barrister, or a phy- 
sician in moderate practice. His term of prosperity is 
also shorter, for the gift of imagination generally fails 
us long before those talents which are sufficient for or- 
dinary intellectual toil. And yet nothing is more com- 
mon than to hear otherwise sensible people talk of the 
large incomes made by popular writers. 

TroUope and Scott were exceptionally quick workers, 
but there are few men who can write a three - volume 
novel worth reading under nine months ; in the same 
time a popular painter can produce at least three pict- 
ures, for each of which he gets as large a sum as the pop- 
ular writer for his entire, book. Nor does his work take 
out of the artist as it does out of the author. Indeed, if 
a man looks for wealth, the profession of literature is the 
very last I would recommend him to embrace. On the 
other hand, such guerdon as the novelist does receive is 
gained very pleasantly and accompanied by many charm- 
ing circumstances. He can choose his society where he 



Fame. 181 

likes, for all doors are open to him. If fool enough to 
prefer swelldom to comfort, he has no need to struggle 
for it as men in other callings, with ten times his income, 
must needs do. At the tables of the great he is not 
placed according to the degrees of rank (or Heaven 
knows where he would be), but enjoys a status of his 
own. In ordinary society, too (which is much more 
'^particular" than the "best circles"), he is regarded 
with an exceptional charity. His position, indeed, among 
the most res23ectable people always reminds me of a luna- 
tic among the Indians: "the Great Spirit " has afflicted 
him with genius, they think (or at all events w^ith some- 
thing of that nature), and it behooves them to wink at his 
little infirmities. Nobody dreams of asking whether he 
is High Church or Low Church or even No Church. 
However much he may be " at his ease in Zion," nobody 
accuses him of irreverence. It has been said of a certain 

personage that a great many more people know T. F 

than T. F knows ; but the number of people who 

want to know your popular novelist is almost incredible. 
His photograph is sighed for by literary maidens beyond 
the seas, and by professional photographers (who take 
him for nothing) at home ; his autograph is demanded 
from some quarter of the world by every post. Poems 
are written on him, books are dedicated to him, para- 
graphs about his failing health (often when he is quite 
well, which makes it the more pleasant) pervade the 
newspapers, as though he were a bishop who gives hopes 
of a vacant see. If vanity is his ruling passion (a cir- 
cumstance not altogether unprecedented) he should in- 
deed be a happy man. 

What, however, he is really to be congratulated upon 
is his work itself, which, always delightful to him, can be 



182 Some Literary Becollections, 

pursued anywhere and at any time ; he is tied to no 
place, and can take holiday when and where he will; 
while, above all, the nature of his occupation brings him 
into connection wdth the pleasantest and brightest peo- 
ple. In this last respect, if in no other — for my little 
book, though a successful story, made no great noise in 
the world — I had reason to be grateful to " Lost Sir Mas- 
singberd." It attracted the attention of some of my 
masters in the art of fiction, and among them that of my 
friend Wilkie Collins. He has probably long forgotten 
the gracious words which he bestowed upon it, but I 
remember them as though they were spoken yesterday 
instead of twenty years ago. Accustomed as was the 
author of " The Moonstone " to strike at the root of a 
mystery, he told me that he could not guess what had be- 
come of my missing baronet — in which lies what dramat- 
ic interest the book possesses — till he came on the page 
that told him. My old friend at " The Knoll " of course 
wrote to congratulate me, though my story, she said, was 
far too exciting for her, and in her failing health had 
given her more discomfort than pleasure ; and Dickens 
touched my trembling ears with praise. What was real- 
ly remarkable about the book was that I had, of course 
unconsciously, taken for the name of my hero the very 
name (Massingberd) of a gentleman who had been miss- 
ing for years, and to this day (I believe) has never been 
heard of by his friends. 

Among those in another sphere of life with whom lit- 
erature has brought me into connection, was the late 
lamented Duke of Albany. Years ago, long before he 
took that title, one of my works was so fortunate as to 
beguile some hours of pain, and led to my introduction 
to him. I visited him at Boyton Manor, the house he had 



Prince Leojpold. 183 

in Wiltshire, and subsequently at Claremont, and else- 
where. He was a most cordial and kindly host, and never 
could have been mistaken, even by the most cynical nat- 
ure; for a patron. His love of literature was so great 
and genuine as to excuse my mention of him in this place, 
even if the interest attaching to his memory were less 
deep and general. He had an hereditary talent for lan- 
guages, and the passion of his race for music. These 
things were lost upon me and he knew it, and (as if I 
had been the Prince and he the Courtier) took pains to 
avoid those topics in my company. It was the same in 
politics, in which we had not an opinion in common. I 
remember visiting him at the time of the Turco-Russian 
war, and he observed, on receiving me (in playful refer- 
ence to my wrongheadedness in other matters), " I do 
hope, Payn, you are at least a good Turk." And when 
I was obliged to shake my head, he said, ^' Well then, we 
won't talk about it ;" and we never did. If this courteous 
reticence were more generally observed, a new charm 
would often be given to hospitality. As a host, indeed, 
Prince Leopold was almost faultless. He never forgot, 
however great might be the interval between their visits, 
the little peculiarities of his friends. In royal residences 
the early hours, which are essential to my private com- 
fort, are not usual, nor is it customary to retire before 
the master of the house ; but long before it grew late he 
would make some pleasant observation about the habits 
of those who were not night birds, which left me free to 
go to roost. He was not a student in the ordinary sense 
of the word, though his knowledge of science and philoso- 
phy was probably much superior to mine, but he was well 
acquainted with the lighter branches of literature, and 
took great pleasure in them. I had the satisfaction of 



184 Some Literary Recollections. 

introducing him to the works of Lefanu, and his admira- 
tion of that author (so strangely neglected by the general 
public, notwithstanding the popularity of some of his 
imitators) vied with my own. He was fond of humor, 
though not of the boisterous kind (which perhaps requires 
physical health for its appreciation), and his favorite 
modern author was Thackeray. In Scott, too, he took 
great delight, and pointed out to me with pride a me- 
mento which had been given him by his hostess at Ab- 
botsf ord, the bog - oak walking - stick which Sir Walter 
brought away with him from Ireland, and of which he 
made such constant use. He had had his choice of richer 
relics, but had the good taste and sense to know what to 
choose. 

"Lost Sir Massingberd" (which W. G. Clark loould 
always call "Found Sir Missing Bird") was published, 
like many of its successors, anonymously — an example 
which I would earnestly dissuade my literary brethren 
from following. If one has any personalty belonging to 
one (whether it is spelled with an i or not), it is just as well 
to claim it, otherwise some one is sure to do so. A literary 
gentleman in Glasgow, upon the strength of the author- 
ship of this very book of mine, collected money from the 
charitable for some weeks. He said that the writer of 
the work in question had been very ill remunerated, and 
appealed with confidence to the spirit of fair - play in- 
herent in every British breast. Nay, curiously enough, 
so late as last year there was another Richmond in the 
field ; for my friend Walter Besant writes to me from a 
North-country inn as follows : " I met a man in the coffee- 
room here who gave me many mysterious hints of his 
great position in the world of letters, and, finding him 
very anxious to be interrogated, took care not to trouble 



An Impostor. 185 

him with any questions. I asked the landlady, however, 
who he was. ^Oh!' said she, 'he is quite a famous lit- 
erary gent; he wrote "A Confidential Agent.'"" My 
correspondent concludes his letter: "I have always sus- 
pected this ; he is a much more distinguished-looking fel- 
low, and more likely to have done it than you." Such 
are the so-called friendships between literary men in the 
same line of business. 

Speaking of impostors reminds me of two very fine 
specimens with whom, about this time, I became ac- 
quainted, one of whom adorned, and, for all I know to 
the contrary, may still adorn, my own profession. One 
evening a gentleman called at my house and requested to 
see me upon very particular business. As I was absent 
from home, he asked to see my wife. He was a gentle- 
manly-looking person, of delicate appearance, and very 
shy, hesitating manners, " It is most unfortunate," he 
stammered, " for they told me at the office I should be 
sure to find Mr. Payn at home, and he is the only friend 
in London on whom I can rely under certain circumstances 
— pressing ones — in which I find myself." 

" You know my husband, then ?" 

^' No, madam, I do not; but my name — Henslow — 
would not be unfamiliar to him. I am a novelist, and the 
author of a serial now running in the Phoenix magazine." 

His hostess smiled politely, but could not go so far as 
to say that we took in the Phoe7iix, Could she give any 
message for him to her husband ? 

He shook his head. "The fact is, madam, my difficulty 
is very urgent ; it is of a domestic and not of a literary 
character. I came up to town from Gloucestershire this 
morning with my poor sister to consult a London physi- 
cian upon her account. She is dying, but there are hopes 



186 Some Literary Recollections, 

4 

of alleviation and mitigation. At Swindon Station I got 
out to get her some refreshment, and left my purse on 
the counter. We are absolutely without a penny be- 
tween us." 

" Good heavens ! But where is your sister ?" 

"She is in the second-class ladies' waiting-room atPad- 
dington Station. She has been there for eight hours. I 
have been all day waiting for the only acquaintance I 
had in town, but in vain. Then I thought of your hus- 
band, who, being of the same calling, and knowing me at 
least by name, would, I felt sure, lend me a few shillings." 

The question to have asked, no doubt, would have been, 
" Why not have gone to the editor of the Phoenix ?" But 
my wife was touched by his evident distress of mind and 
the idea of the invalid in the waiting-room, and she gave 
him a sovereign on loan. 

I naturally looked upon that sovereign as lost. It 
might indeed produce interest to my wife in paradise, 
where all good deeds are said to fructify ; but so far as I 
was concerned I felt sure I should never see either it or 
Mr. Henslow again. 

The next morning, however, to my extreme surprise, he 
called. A few words convinced me that he was the per- 
son he professed to be, and made me ashamed of my sus- 
picions. " Your wife's kindness," he said, '^ has enabled 
my sister to procure comfortable lodgings ; our return 
tickets were fortunately not in my lost purse, and now we 
are going back again." 

" But your sister has not seen the physician ?" 

" No," he said, with a faint flush ; " we must come up 
asrain for that." Of course I understood that he referred 
to his want of cash, and forgetting in my turn, for the mo- 
ment, that he might just as well apply to the Phoenix as 



Sj>iritrraj[>ping. 187 

to me, I advanced him another loan. He accepted it with 
such modest hesitation as would have destroyed the last 
remnant of suspicion had any still survived within me, 
and, promising to return it by the next day's post, took his 
departure — forever. No one that I know of has- seen Mr. 
Henslow since. A week or so afterwards I called at the 
Phoenix office, and found that I had not been imposed 
upon so far as his identity was concerned. He had, how- 
ever, been paid beforehand for his serial story, and since 
then, as many callers testified, had levied contributions on 
the charitable upon the strength of that literary achieve- 
ment. If these lines should meet the gentleman's eye, 1 
should like him to know that he is forgiven, and that if he 
will only sit to me for his character I should like to have 
further pecuniary dealings with him. Such an idiosyncra- 
sy as his must be would be well worth my professional 
attention. 

The next greatest impostor I ever came across was 
F , the famous spiritualist. Home being on the Con- 
tinent at the time (though an imperative message from a 
court of law brought him shortly afterwards to England), 

F was then at the head of his profession in London, 

the very top of the table-turners. I met him for the first 
time at a large party where there were many persons dis- 
tinguished in literature — not a few of whom, to my great 
surprise, were believers in him. I had thoroughly investi- 
gated the spiritual business (for copy), and knew it for 
what it was : it has long been exploded among all persons 
of intelligence, and is now only represented by its bastard 
offspring, thought-reading, but at that time it enjoyed 
considerable credit. As I was known to be sceptical, 

F undertook to tackle me. He promised that any 

dead friend of whom I should think would indicate his 



188 Some Literary Becollections. 

presence in the usual manner — like a postman. F 

rapped out my friend's surname accurately enough, though 
I did my best to delude him by not hesitating at the prop- 
er letter ; but he was Avrong in the Christian name — he 
made it William instead of Henry, and I positively de- 
clined to hear any communication from a departed spirit 
who did not know the name given to him by his godfa- 
ther and godmother. There was, in fact, a bit of a row. 

The next day I mentioned the circumstance to H , a 

common friend of mine and the dead man's, and he at 
once said, " But you are wrong, my dear fellow ; our 
friend's name was William. It was his brother [whom 
we had also known] who was Henry." 

The circumstance somewhat staggered both of us, 

and we thought it only right, in justice to F , to let 

him know how the case stood. We accordingly called 
upon him in Seymour Street, where he gave his seances^ 
and I made my apology. He was very dignified about it, 
and not at all triumphant. '' I have no power over these 
things myself," he said ; " they are revealed to me ; I am 
merely an instrument" (and so he was, a stringed one). 
He condescended so far, however, to combine business 
with his " mission " as to suggest a seance then and there 
at a guinea a head, to which proposition we acceded. 

I can see him now, a very fat, white-skinned man, with a 
face something like that of the first Napoleon, and I should 
think as great a scoundrel. His mode of procedure was 
to direct us to write down the names of a dozen dead 
friends on pieces of folded paper, and place them on the 
table. Then he would take one up in his large white 
hand and inquire whether the spirit named therein was on 
the premises ; and after two or three trials (for success 
was never achieved the first time) the reply came in the 



Letters of Blood. 189 

affirmative. H , though a man of great acquirements 

and intelligence, was of an exceptionally reverent nature, 
and he did not much like dealing with his dead friends 
so lightly ; but eventually he did what was required of 
him. He wrote down among others the name of some one 
I had never heard of. It was a woman's name — let us 
call it Lucy Lisle — and, of course, I was unaware that he 
had done so. Suddenly the table at which we sat was 
violently perturbed — indeed, it was almost thrown upon 

us — and F , in something like convulsions, raised his 

sleeve and displayed, written in letters of blood upon his 
arm, the words Lucy Lisle. 

H , greatly agitated, got up at once, and we left 

the house and took a walk together in Hyde Park where 
we discussed the matter. As luck would have it, there 
we met W. G. Clark, of Cambridge, and confided to him 
what had occurred, and he agreed to take a guinea's 

worth of supernatural information from F in my 

company the next morning. What had happened, as we 
both agreed, was that the conjuror, while ''making hay," 
as it were, of the dozen pieces of paper, had contrived to 
possess himself of one of them, and afterwards of its con- 
tents (this was afterwards found to be the case; but he 
had also a blank slip, which he dropped when he took up 
the other, so that there should always be the right num- 
ber upon the table). What puzzled me and delighted 
Clark were the letters of blood. 

The very same thing took place as on the former occa- 
sion. F pitched upon one of Clark's friends, and 

produced " Henry James " upon his naked arm in gory 
characters. 

" That is very curious," said Clark, in his dulcet tones. 
"You have reproduced quite accurately the name that I 



190 Some Literary Recollections. 

wrote down ; but I see that, by a mistake, no doubt aris- 
ing from my official position" (he was Tutor of Trinity at 
the time), "I have written it with the surname first; the 
deceased gentleman's name was James Henry. That you 
have read my slip of paper is certain ; for that Mr. Henry, 
even in his disembodied state, should not know his sur- 
name from his Christian name is incredible. I shall not 
hesitate to say what has happened here wherever I go, and 
I should recommend you to leave London." 

F took this excellent advice within twenty -four 

hours. It was afterwards found by experiment that let- 
ters written by a stylus upon a white skin will remain, 
and apparently in blood, for more than a minute. It was 
certainly a very effective performance. 

Among other eminent individuals imposed upon by 
this specious personage was the author of ''A Strange 
Story," who was even reported to have said that, " if there 

had been no revelation, Mr. F would have convinced 

him of the existence of another world." I had had some 
correspondence with Lord Lytton concerning Leitch Ritch- 
ie's pension — his claims to which he had (as it seemed 
to me curiously enough) refused to advocate, upon the 
ground that he (his Lordship) was in opposition to Her 
Majesty's Government ; but the first time I met him was 
at the gathering at Knebworth in connection with the 
Guild of Literature and Art, which, though intended to 
become historical, was, to confess the truth, little short of 
a failure. 

Some houses were built at Stevenage for the accommo- 
dation of decayed authors, in which none of them could 
be induced to live, even rent free. They pointed to the 
local train bills, and showed that it was impossible to reach 
their proposed homes after the performances at the thea- 



The Guild of Literature. 191 

tres. This difficulty had not been taken into account by 
the patrons of the scheme ; and there were others also — 
" What are you going to pay us for being buried alive at 
Stevenage ?" for one. 

The festival which was to inaugurate this new Arcadia 
of Literature was itself not a promising one. It was em- 
phatically '' a scratch entertainment ;" almost every au- 
thor of eminence in London was invited to it, and a great 
many others, and " the county " were asked to meet them. 
It was our host's idea to introduce these two classes 
to one another, so that, should any of the authors be- 
come " decayed " (which was highly probable), they would 
be received with open arms by their landed neighbors. 
The two parties did not amalgamate. I was talking to 
Charles Collins, who with many others was staying in the 
house, when he was accosted by a fellow-guest of the " ex- 
quisite " type. " What a dem'd funny set of peojDle !" he 
said ; " 'pon my life, before I was told who they were, I 
thought it was the For ester s,"^^ 

Charles Collins, brother of the novelist of that name, 
and son-in-law to Dickens, was himself an excellent writer. 
His " Cruise upon Wheels " is one of the most charming 
books of travel ever written, and his short sketches — not- 
ably those two accounts of a visit to the Docks, one sup- 
posed to be written under local influences, and the other 
the next day in all statistical sobriety — testify to his great 
powers of humor. He was in weak health, and endured 
with admirable patience more physical suffering than his 
friends were aware of. He, however, sometimes exhibited 
a whimsical finicality. "No one gives less trouble than 
myself," he once observed to a friend of mine who was 
his host, "but I like my little tastes consulted. Your 
bacon at breakfast is not very streaky ; and loould you be • 



192 Some Literary Becollections, 

so kind as to ask your man to hang up my great-coat by 
the loop ?" 

I shall not easily forget his delight at the following lit- 
tle social fiasco^ which took place at the house of a dear 
but somewhat fastidious friend of ours in Westbourne 
Terrace. C , a musical critic famous for his good din- 
ners, happened to be calling at the same time as ourselves ; 
he, too, was fastidious, but in a much greater degree than 
our host, devoted to music, painting, and the fine arts, de- 
spising every one who did not come up to his standard of 
culture, and I need hardly say, therefore, with a great hor- 
ror of boys. Male children were smuggled away at his 
approach, lest they should put the accomplished creature 
out of tune. He was not in general very affable to any- 
body, but on this occasion he was exceptionally gracious, 
and especially to our host. 

'^ My dear L ," he exclaimed, with effusion, " are you 

engaged for Thursday week — Thursday, the twentieth ? 

— if not, I have a nice little plan." L dived into his 

breast-pocket for his engagement list. He scented the 
best of dinners, and also excellent company — none the 
worse for the circumstance that the host would sometimes 
retire to his bed to compose something (or perhaps him- 
self) and leave them to their own devices. 

"I am happy to say," he answered, '^that on Thursday 
week I am free." 

" That is capital. Then on Thursday week I will come 
and dine with you." 

^' Very good," returned L , though with a decided 

falling off in the enthusiasm of his manner. 

" Yes, I will come, and I will bring with me — what do 
you think? — a Bluecoat boy. The fact is," he proceeded 
to explain with an air of great relief and satisfaction. 



A Jewel Bobber?/. 193 

"that I have promised his friends to see him into the 
mail-train at Paddington, which is a long way from my 
house ; while from Westbourne Terrace, you see, it would 
be no trouble to me at all." 

The whole scene, much embellished by the chagrined 
countenance of our host, formed one of the prettiest bits 
of genteel comedy I ever saw on the stage of real life. 

A still droller incident of by no means a "genteel" 
kind — since it implicated me in a very serious criminal 
offence — took place about this time. A great jewel rob- 
bery was committed at the West End under very ingen- 
ious circumstances. A gentleman and lady staying at a 
fashionable hotel had ordered a large quantity of valua- 
ble goods, chiefly diamonds, to be brought to them for 
their inspection. They drugged or chloroformed (I forget 
which) the jeweller's assistant who brought them, and got 
clear away with all the swag. It so happened that the 
whole adventure had been, as it were, prefigured in Cham- 
bers's Journal twelve months before ; a contributor had 
imagined and written the incident just as it afterwards 
occurred, and the story had so recommended itself to some 
member of the criminal class that he had put it into prac- 
tical execution. The jeweller thereupon wrote to the 
editor of the Journal (poor me), charging him, not indeed 
with actual complicity in the crime, but as having been 
accessary to it before the fact. " Under the pretence of 
elevating the masses," he indignantly observed, "you sug- 
gest to them ingenious methods of robbing honest trades- 
men." My answer to this gentleman was, I flatter myself, 
complete. I pointed out to him that if honest tradesmen 
would only read the respectable periodical I had the hon- 
or to edit — a moral duty not neglected, it seemed, even by 
the lowest classes — they would put themselves on their 

9 



194 Some Literary liecollections. 

guard against such catastrophes. My position compelled 
me to appear to sympathize with the offenders, but I have 
always thought that they showed themselves miserably 
deficient in gratitude in never sending my contributor the 
least acknowledgment — not even one of the rings of which 
they had so many — for what he had done for them. 

Their putting into practice the offspring of his imagina- 
tion was certainly a curious thing to do. But Nature her- 
self does not scorn to stoop to similar acts of plagiarism. 
We story-tellers are often the first to suggest an occur- 
rence which, after it has actually happened, goes most un- 
justly to strengthen the popular superstition that truth is 
stranger than fiction. 

Some years after the publication of " Lost Sir Massing- 
berd " the following paragraph appeared in the Philadel- 
phia Ledger : 

"A Curious Discovery. — The hurricane which passed over the Miami 
Valley on July 4th tore down a number of old trees, and among them a 
large oak. The owner of the property, a Mr. Rogers, on examining the 
extent of the damage done by the storm, discovered in the hollow of the 
fallen oak a human skeleton, with some brass buttons and shreds of cloth- 
ing, and among other things a pocket-book with a number of papers. A 
communication to the Miami County Democrat^ signed J. F. Clark, relates : 
*■ The man's name, as gathered from the papers, was Roger Vanderburg, 
a native of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and a captain in the Revolutionary 
Army. He was an aid to Washington during the retreat across the Jer- 
seys, and served a time in Arnold's head-quarters at West Point. In 1791 
he marched with St. Clair against the North-western Indians, and in the 
famous outbreak of that general on the Wabash, November 3d of the year 
just written, he was wounded and captured. But while being conveyed to 
the Indian town at Upper Piqua he effected his escape, but found himself 
hard pressed by his savage foes. He saw the hollow in the oak, and de- 
spite the mangled arm, and with the aid of a beech that grew beside the 
giant then, he gained the haven and dropped therein. Then came a fear- 
ful discovery. He had miscalculated the depth of the hollow, and there 



Plagiarisun, ^ 195 

was no escape. Oh, the story told by the diary of the oak's despairing 
prisoner ! How, rather than surrender to the torture of the stake, he 
chose death by starvation ! how he wrote his diary in the uncertain light 
and the snows ! Here is one entry in the diary : " November 10. — Five 
days without /ooc? .-^ When I sleep I dream of luscious fruits 2^x1^ flowing 
streams. The stars laugh at my misery ! It is snowing now. I freeze 
while I starve. God pity me !" The italicized words were supplied by 
Mr. Rogers, as the trembling hand ofttimes refused to indite plainly. The 
entries covered a period of eleven days, and in disjointed sentences is told 
the story of St. Clair's defeat. Mr. Rogers has written to Lancaster to as- 
certain if any descendants of the ill-fated captain live ; if so, they shall 
have his bones.'" 

Again, in '' Murphy's Master," I got rid of a great 
number of disagreeable characters on an island in the 
Indian Seas by the simple though startling device of sub- 
merging the island itself ; the few respectable persons 
who inhabited it (including the hero and heroine) being 
most properly and providentially saved in a fishing-boat. 
Some critics thought it audacious ; but Nature was so 
favorably impressed by my little plan that she used it 
herself two years afterwards, and in a more comprehen- 
sive way than I should have dared to invent ; an island in 
the Bay of Bengal, with the Kinshra light-house upon it, 
with seven scientific assistants, being submerged in a pre- 
cisely similar manner. 

I do not wish to be hard upon Nature, and without giv- 
ing details which could not but wound her amour pvopre^ 
will merely remark that she committed a similar act of 
piracy in the case of my novel ''Found Dead." 

Though by no means a humorous story itself, that book, 
by-the-way, was the cause of a very fine stroke of humor. 
It was the custom with the very respectable firm of pub- 
lishers with whom I did business at that time to pay my 
checks to the names, of my immortal works, instead of to 



1&6 Some Literary Recollections. 

myself ; and since it suited their convenience so to do, 
I never complained of it, though it sometimes put me 
in rather a false position when I presented my demands 
in person, as, for example, in the case of the " Family 
Scapegrace." When I came for the proceeds of ^' Found 
Dead," it was too much for the sense of (professional) 
propriety of the banker's clerk, who gravely observed, 
" It is very fortunate, sir, that this check is not payable 
' to order,' or it would have t>o be endorsed by your ex- 
ecutors." 

This incident, I remember, delighted Dickens, who re- 
marked, however, with a sudden access of gravity, " I 
should not like to have much money at a bank which 
keeps so clever a clerk as that." 

He was himself an excellent man of business, though in 
early life he xnade great pecuniary mistakes by an im- 
patience of disposition, a desire to get things settled and 
done with, which is shared by many men of letters to 
their great loss ; he was painstaking, accurate, and punct- 
ual to a fault ; and the trouble he took about other peo- 
ple's affairs, especially in his own calling, is almost in- 
credible. Young men of letters are especially fortunate 
as regards the sympathy and assistance they receive from 
members of other professions. Almost all of us have our 
Dr. Goodenough. The lawyers, too, are always ready 
with their advice. I remember mentioning a legal diffi- 
culty which I had come across in the plot of a novel in 
the presence of one who is now perhaps the foremost man 
at the English bar. The next morning, though at that 
time we had only a mere club acquaintance, I received 
from him half a dozen clearly written pages explaining 
in the most lucid manner the law of the case in point. 
The chiefs of our own calling are always ready to give a 



Professional Friendshvp. 197 

helping hand to their juniors ; but Dickeng looked upon 
it as an imperative duty so to do. Many a time have 
young would - be contributors called upon me, and pro- 
duced from their breast-pockets as passport to my atten- 
tion a letter of rejection, torn and frayed, and bearing 
tokens of having been read a hundred times, from the 
Master. 

" He wrote me this letter himself," they would say, as 
though there were but one " He " in the world. It was 
generally a pretty long one, though written at a time 
when minutes were guineas to him, full of the soundest 
advice and tenderest sympathy. There was always en- 
couragement in them (for of course these were not hope- 
less cases), and often — whenever, in fact, there seemed 
need for other help besides counsel — some allusion, 
couched in the most delicate terms, to ^'the enclosed." 
Dickens not only loved his calling but had a respect for 
it, and did more than any man to make it respected. 
With the pains he took to perfect whatever proceeded 
from his own pen every one who has read his life must be 
conversant ; but this minute attention to even the small- 
est details had its drawbacks. When an inaccuracy, how- 
ever slight, was brought home to him, it made him mis- 
erable. So conscious was I of this, that I never liked to 
tell him of a mistake in "Dombey and Son" which has 
escaped the notice of "readers," professional and other- 
wise, in every edition. The Major and Cleopatra sit 
down to play piquet; but what they do play — for they 
" propose to " one another — is harte. 

In friendship, which in all other points must needs be 
frank and open, this problem often remains unsolved — 
namely, the friendship of one's friend for some other 
man. D and E- have the most intimate relations 



198 Some Literary Hecollections. 

with one another, but for the life of him E cannot 

understand what D sees in F to so endear him 

to him. This was what many of D 's (Dickens's) 

friends, and certainly the world at large, said of F 

(John Forster). It is not my business, nor is it in my 
power, to explain the riddle ; I rarely met them together 
without witnessing some sparring between them — and 
sometimes without the gloves. On the other hand, I have 
known Forster pay some compliments to "the Inimita- 
ble " in his patronizing way which the other would ac- 
knowledge in his drollest manner. It is certain that 
Forster took the utmost interest in Dickens, even to the 
extent of seeing everything he wrote through the press, 
and as to the genuineness of Dickens's regard for him I 
have the most positive proof. I have already said that 
Dickens once wrote to me spelling the word Foster (in 
"Foster Brothers") with an r, "because I am always think- 
ing of my friend Forster." Long afterwards, in acknowl- 
edging a service which I had been fortunately able to do 
for him, in terms far more generous than it deserved, he 
actually signed the letter, not Charles Dickens, but John 
Forster ! 

When the biography of the former appeared, and its 
editor was accused of representing himself as standing in 
a nearer relation to Dickens than he really was, I thought 
it only fair to Forster to send him those two l^^tters, with 
which — though of course he had no need of the corrobo- 
ration of such a matter from without — he expressed him- 
self greatly pleased. 

In 1871 1 lost my old friend Robert Chambers, and with 
it, after a short interval, the editorship of the Journal, 
My separation from it was a foregone conclusion. My 
relations with the surviving proprietor — always what the 



A Presentation. 199 

diplomatists call " strained " — were severed within twelve 
months, notwithstanding the good offices of his nephew, 
Robert's son. My late contributors were so good as to 
present me with a silver inkstand, suitably inscribed, 
which I value beyond any possession I have in the world. 
Their spokesman (a humorist) whispered as he handed it 
to me, ^' Attenborough's is the place;" but it has never 
gone there. 

My literary life from that time has gone on very 
smoothly — perhaps more smoothly than I deserve. I 
have been especially fortunate in finding friendship where 
I might naturally have only looked for business rela- 
tions; nor do I believe that I have an enemy in my own 
calling, nor even among my " natural foes," the critics. 
On the other hand, I am well aware that there are a 
good many people who dislike me very cordially. If 
they do so for a good reason, I exceedingly regret it ; 
but there are some folks whose animosity is the highest 
of compliments. There is, in my opinion, no more fatal 
weakness in human nature than the desire to be thought 
well of by everybody. 

When good - fortune has once set in, the record of a 
man's life (especially a literary life) is apt to get unin- 
teresting, and for that reason alone I should be disposed 
to end here, at all events for the present, what is after 
all rather a string of literary anecdotes (some of which, 
however, I venture to think have some interest) than a 
literary autobiography. Moreover, the last decade of 
the life of a living person is rather a delicate matter to 
deal with. 

It will be observed by those who have done me the 
honor of reading them, that these reminiscences have 
scrupulously avoided all mention, beyond a "passing 



200 Some Literary BeGollections. 

allusion," of authors who are, happily, still with us. I 
should have had nothing but good to say of them, which 
would have sadly disappointed some people; but in omit- 
ting them I am well aware that I have deprived my nar- 
rative of what would otherwise have been its chief at- 
traction. It is unambitious enough. Heaven knows, and 
will interest, I fear, such persons only as are interested 
in literary matters, and those but of the lighter kind. It 
is, in fact, the literary rather than the general public 
that I now address — a reflection which causes me to add 
a few words by way of postscript. 

A personal experience to which I have already alluded 
has taught me, " by harsh evidence," that young persons 
who would embrace the literary calling are very prompt 
to see its attractions and very slow to understand its 
difiiculties. From the somewhat light and airy tone 
(of which no one can be more conscious than myself) in 
which these Recollections have been written, they may 
conclude, perhaps, that the profession of literature re- 
quires little pains or study, and that such a moderate 
success at least as has been here described may be at- 
tained by a small amount of work. I can only say, for 
my part, that when I hear what are held to be hard- 
working men in other callings talk of "work," I smile. 
I have often found that what they mean by work (when 
they are not in the enjoyment of a more or less long va- 
cation) is the remaining within the same four walls for a 
certain large number of hours per diem. Even when they 
do work they have something to work upon ; they have 
not to spin the very threads of their work out of their 
own brains before they begin business. I have not, indeed, 
been so close a prisoner as some of them, for the necessi- 
ties of my calling (so far as novel- writing is concerned) 



Whist. 201 

have often compelled me to seek change of scene for 
" local coloring ;" but for the last five-and-twenty years 
of my life I have only had three days of consecutive hol- 
iday once a year; while all the year round (from another 
necessity of the pen) the Sundays have been as much 
working days with me as the week-days. 

Such from day-to-day labors, though not, it is true, 
extending to long hours, would perhaps have been impos- 
sible but for the relief afforded by some favorite amuse- 
ment; this, in my case, as it has been in that of much 
greater men, has been the noble game of whist, which I 
have played regularly, for two or three hours a day, for 
the last thirty years. It does not, indeed, much matter 
what it is, so that the relaxation is an attractive one, but I 
pity that man from the bottom of my heart who can find 
no interest in a game. It is not every one who, like Sarah 
Battle, can relax their mirjds over a book, and least of all 
those who write books. I have noticed that those of my 
own calling who read the most are not the best students 
of human nature, and fall most often into the pit of pla- 
giarism. How often have I heard it said — too late — by 
those who have most certainly earned their play -time, 
"How I wish I had an amusement !" The taste for such 
things must be caught early (like the measles) and in- 
dulged (like the patient). What position, for example, is 
more unsatisfactory than that of the man who has only 
played whist occasionally — say once a week — and "makes 
up a rubber to oblige?" In a partner's eyes, at least, 
such a person T^ill never meet his obligations. Mackworth 
Praed must have been a whist-player, or he never could 
have depicted " Quince." 

" Some public principles he had, 
But was no flatterer nor fretter ; 
9* 



202 Some Literary Recollections, 

He rapped his box when things were bad 
And said, ' I cannot make them better/ 

And much he loathed the patriot's snort, 
And much he scorned the placeman's snuffle, 

And cut the fiercest quarrel short 

With * patience, gentlemen — and shuffle.' " 

Men of letters are rarely good card-players — Lord Lyt- 
ton and Lever are almost the only exceptions I can call 
to mind — but some of them have been fond of whist, 
and have enlivened it by their sallies. A few of these, 
which I have happened myself to hear, seem worthy of 
record. 

A guest being asked to a dinner-party, which was to 
precede an evening at cards, thus apologized for coming 
in morning costume, " The suit is surely no matter, so 
long as one is a trump." 

A man who had his foot on a gout-rest was holding 
very bad cards, and complaining alike of his luck and 
his malady. Upon being reproached by his more fortu- 
nate adversary for his irritation, he suddenly exclaimed, 
"It's all very well for you^ but a ^game hand' is a very 
different thing from a 'game leg.' " 

On another occasion the same gentleman (whose tem- 
per, gout or no gout, was always a little short) jumped 
up from the seat where he had been losing and declared 
that he would play no more. '' But you'll break up the 
table," pleaded the others, pathetically. "If it is broken 
up there will still be three ' legs ' left," was his uncompro- 
mising reply. 

A whist-player, who even though he was a loser ought 
to have known better than to have jested upon such a 
tender subject, once remarked, with reference to the con- 
siderable number of novels for which I have been respon- 



'^DiimlyP 203 

Bible, '^Nobody can deny, my dear fellow, that you have 
great ^numerical strength.'"* 

I remember a little poem called " Dumby," written by 
a brother novelist, who has himself, alas ! left a vacant 
place at the four-square table forever, which has a pa- 
thetic singularity about it : 

" I see the face of the friend I lost 
Before me as I sit, 
His thin white hands, so subtle and swift. 
And his eyes that gleam with wit. 

" I see him across the square green cloth 
That's dappled with black and red ; 
Between the luminous globes of light 
I watch the friend long dead. 

" It is only I who can see him there, 
With victory in his glance, 
As, the cross ruff stopped, he strides along 
Like Wellington through France. 

" He died years past in the jungle reeds, 
But still I see him sit, 
Facing me with his fan of cards. 

And those eyes that beam with wit." 

In that excellent poem of Thomas Hood's in which he 
describes the village of Bullock Smithy, he exhibits a nat- 
ural disinclination to come to the workhouse. 

" There is one more house," 
he says, 

^* Which we have not come to yet, and I hope we never shall, 
And that's the parish poor-house." 

* A term used to express plenty of small cards without an honor. 



204 Some Literary Recollections. 

In these recollections of mine I feel a similar reluctance 
to allude to the Playhouse, for the fact is my merits have 
never been recognized on the boards. The subject is a 
sore one, and I will merely say that when I think of a cer- 
tain comedietta called '' The Substitute," and the way in 
which it was treated by the dramatic critics, I appreciate 
Landor's observation, made under similar circumstances 
in connection with his ^'Imaginary Conversations," that 
he would bet a pint of porter that none of his detractors, 
even if they took off their coats to it, would come within 
a mile of them. " The Substitute " ran for six weeks out 
of the season at the Court Theatre, and then I suppose 
ran right away, for I have never heard of it since. It 
was really one of the brightest — But there, as Tenny- 
son used (rather doubtfully) to be advertised to say among 
the eulogistic criticisms on " Festus," *^I dare not venture 
to say what I think about that play." 

If I have not been appreciated on the stage, however, I 
have nothing to complain of in respect to my reception 
off the boards. 

The observation of a great writer on having half a doz- 
en bottles of brandy sent him by an anonymous admirer 
is well known. " This," he said, with complacency, " is 
true fame." For my part, as is only in accordance with 
the rules of proportion, I have had to be content with 
much inferior liquor — mere ginger-beer — a drink which 
is effervescent, no doubt, but while it lasts is refreshing 
enough. I once lost a Persian cat which (I had almost 
written who) was very dear to me, and I went to a sub- 
urban police-office for professional advice as to handbills 
and rewards. " What is your name, sir ?" inquired the 
intelligent inspector. (It is cynically observed that in- 
spectors are always called in the newspapers "intelli- 



My Brandy. 205 

gent ;" but this one, as will be seen, fully deserved the 
title.) As my business was a lawful one, I of course gave 
him no alias, 

" James Payn ?" he echoed. " Are you the story- 
teller ?" 

I modestly murmured that I was. 

" Then I tell you what," he said, in a tone in which gen- 
erosity and gratitude were finely blended, " you are out 
of my district, but TU take the case^ 

And he took it. That was my brandy. 

I have also had sums of money borrowed from me at 
various times by admirers of my genius — but that has 
given me less satisfaction. 



THE END. 



SOME POPULAR NOVELS 

Published by HAEPEE & BEOTHEES New York. 



The Octavo Paper Novels in this list may ie obtained in half-binding [leather backs 
and pasteboard sides], suitable for Public and Circulating Libraries, at 25 cents 
per volume, in addition to the prices named below. The 32mo Paper Novels may be 
obtained in Cloth, at 15 cents per volume in addition to the prices named below. 

For a Fft.l List op Novels published by Haepee & Beothees, see Haepeb's New 
AND Revised Catalogue, which will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any ad- 
dress in the United States, on receipt of Ten cents. 



BAKER'S (Rev. W. M.) Carter Quarterman. Illustrated 8vo, Paper f 60 

Inside : a Chronicle of Secession. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 16 

The New Timothy 12mo, Cloth, $1 50; 4to, Paper 25 

The Virginians in Texas 8vo, Paper 75 

BENEDICT'S (F. L.) John Worthington's Name 8 vo, Paper 16 

Miss Dorothy's Charge 8vo, Paper 16 

Miss Van Kortland 8yo, Paper 60 

Mr. Vaughan's Heir 8vo, Paper 16 

My Daughter Elinor 8vo, Paper 80 

St. Simon's Niece 8vo, Paper 60 

BLACK'S (W.) A Daughter of Heth. 12mo, Cloth, $1 25 ; 8vo, Paper 35 

A Princess of Thule 12mo, Cloth, 1 25; 8vo, Paper 50 

Green Pastures and Piccadilly. .12rao, Cloth, 1 25 ; 8vo, Paper 50 

InSilkAttire 12mo, Cloth, 125; 8vo, Paper 35 

Kilmeny 12mo, Cloth, 1 25; 8 vo. Paper 35 

Macleod of Dare. Illustrated. 12mo, Cloth, 1 25 ; 8vo, Paper 60 

4to, Paper 15 

Madcap Violet 12mo, Cloth, 125; 8vo, Paper 50 

Shandon Bells. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth, 125; 4to, Paper 20 

Sunrise 12rao,Cloth, 125; 4to, Paper 15 

That Beautiful Wretch. Iird...l2mo, Cloth, 125; 4to, Paper 20 

The Maid of Killeena, and Other Stories 8 vo, Paper 40 

The Monarch of Mincing-Lane. Illustrated 8 vo, Paper 50 

The Strange Adventures of a Phaeton. 12mo, Cloth, $1 25 ; 8vo, Pa. 50 

Three Feathers. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth 1 25 

White Wings. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth, $1 25; 4to, Paper 20 

Yolande. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth, 1 25; 4to, Paper 20 

BLACKMORE'S (R. D.) Alice Lorraine 8vo, Paper 50 

Christowell 4to, Paper 20 

Clara Vaughan 4to, Paper 1 5 

Cradock Nowell 8vo, Paper 60 

Cripps, the Carrier. Illustrated 8vo,Paper 50 

Erema 8vo, Paper 50 

LornaDoone 12mo, Cloth, $1 00; 8vo,Paper 25 

Mary Anerley 16mo, Cloth, 100; 4to, Paper 15 

The Maid of Sker 8vo, Paper 50 

Tommy Upmore...l6mo, Paper, 35 cts. ; Cloth, 50 cts. ; 4to, Paper 20 

BRADDON'S (Miss) An Open Verdict 8vo, Paper 35 



Harper dt Brothers^ Popular Novels, 



PKIOK 

BRADDON^S (Miss) A Strange World 8vo, Paper$ 40 

Asphodel 4to, Paper 15 

Aurora Floyd 8vo, Paper 40 

Barbara; or, Splendid Misery 4to, Paper 15 

Birds of Prey. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 50 

Bound to John Company. Illustrated 8 vo, Paper 50 

Charlotte's Inheritance 8vo, Paper 35 

Dead Men's Shoes 8vo, Paper 40 

Dead Sea Fruit. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 50 

Eleanor's Victory 8vo, Paper 60 

Fenton's Quest. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 50 

Flower and Weed 4to, Paper 10 

Hostages to Fortune. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 50 

John Marchmont's Legacy 8vo, Paper 50 

Joshua Haggard's Daughter. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 50 

Just as I Am 4to, Paper 15 

Lost for Love. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 50 

Mistletoe Bough, 1878. Edited by M. E. Braddon 4to, Paper 15 

Mistletoe Bough, 1879. Edited by M. E. Braddon 4to, Paper 10 

Mount Boyal 4to, Paper 15 

Phantom Fortune 4to, Paper 20 

Publicans and Sinners 8vo, Paper 50 

Strangers and Pilgrims. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 50 

Taken at the Flood 8vo, Paper 50 

The Cloven Foot 4to, Paper 15 

The Lovels of Arden. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 50 

To the Bitter End. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 50 

Under the Red Flag 4to, Paper 10 

Vixen 4to, Paper 15 

Weavers and Weft 8vo, Paper 25 

BREAD-WINNERS, THE 16mo, Cloth 1 00 

BRONTE'S (Charlotte) Jane Eyre. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth 1 00 

4to, Paper, 15 cents; 8vo, Paper 40 

Shirley. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth, $1 00; 8vo, Paper 50 

The Professor. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth 1 00 

Villette. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth, 100; 8vo, Paper 50 

BRONTE'S (Anna) The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Hl'd... . 12mo, Cloth 1 00 

BRONTE'S (Emily) Wuthering Heights. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth 1 00 

BULWER'S (Lytton) Alice 8vo, Paper 35 

A Strange Story. Illustrated. ...12mo, Cloth, f 1 25 ; 8vo, Paper 50 

Devereux 8vo, Paper 40 

Ernest Maltravers 8vo, Paper 35 

Eugene Aram 8vo, Paper 35 

Godolphin 8vo, Paper 35 

Harold, the Last of the Saxon Kings 8vo, Paper 60 

Kenelm Chillingly 12mo, Cloth, $1 25; 8vo, Paper 50 

Leila 12mo, Cloth, 1 00; 8vo, Paper 25 

Lucretia 8vo, Paper 40 

My Novel 2 vols. 12mo, Cloth, 2 50; 8 vo. Paper 75 

Night and Morning 8vo, Paper 50 

Paul Clifford 8vo, Paper 40 



Harper S Brothers^ Popular Novels, 



PEICR 

BULWER'S Pausanias the Spartan. 12mo, Cloth, 75 cents ; 8vo, Paper $ 25 

Pelham 8vo, Paper 40 

Rienzi 8vo, Paper 40 

The Caxtons 1 2 mo, Cloth, $1 25; 8vo, Paper 50 

The Coming Race 1 2mo, Cloth, 1 00 ; 1 2mo, Paper 50 

The Disowned 8vo, Paper 50 

The Last Days of Pompeii 8vo, Paper, 25 ; 4to, Paper 1 5 

The Last of the Barons 8vo, Paper 50 

The Parisians. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth, $1 50; 8vo, Paper 60 

The Pilgrims of the Rhine 8vo, Paper 20 

What will He do with it? 8vo, Paper 75 

Zanoni 8vo, Paper 85 

CRAIK'S (Miss G. M.) Dorcas 4to, Paper 15 

Mildred 8vo, Paper 80 

Anne Warwick 8vo, Paper 25 

Fortune's Marriage 4to, Paper 20 

Hard to Bear 8vo, Paper 30 

Sydney 4to, Paper 15 

Sylvia's Choice 8vo, Paper 80 

Two Women 4to, Paper 15 

COLLINS'S (Wilkie) Novels. Ill'd Library Edition. 12mo, Cloth, per vol. 1 25 
. After Dark, and Other Stores. — Antonina. — Armadale. — Basil. — 
Hide-and-Seek. — Man and Wife. — My Miscellanies. — No Name. 
— Poor Miss Finch. — The Dead Secret. — The Law and the Lady. 
— The Moonstone. — The New Magdalen. — The Queen of Hearts. 
— The Two Destinies. — The Woman in White. 

Antonina .• 8vo, Paper 40 

Armadale. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 60 

Man and Wife 4to, Paper 20 

My Lady's Money 32mo, Paper 25 

No Name. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 60 

Percy and the Prophet 32mo, Paper 20 

Poor Miss Finch. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 60 

The Law and the Lady. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 50 

The Moonstone. Illustrated 8 vo, Paper 60 

The New Magdalen 8vo, Paper 30 

The Two Destinies. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 35 

The Woman in White. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 60 

DICKENS'S (Charles) Works. Household Edition. Illustrated. 8vo. 

Set of 16 vols., Cloth, in box 22 00 

The same in 8 vols., Cloth 20 00 



A Tale of Two Cities.Paper $ 50 

Cloth 1 00 
Barnaby Rudge Paper 1 00 

Cloth 1 50 
Bleak House Paper 1 00 

Cloth 1 50 
Christmas Stories.... Paper 1 00 

Cloth 1 50 
David Copperfield. ..Paper 1 00 

Cloth 1 50 



DombeyandSon Paper 1 00 

Cloth 1 50 
Great Expectations Paper 1 00 

Cloth 1 50 
Little Dorrit Paper 1 00 

Cloth 1 50 
Martin Chuzzlewit Paper 1 00 

Cloth 1 50 
Nicholas Nickleby Paper 1 00 

Cloth 1 50 



Harper & Brothers' Popular Novels, 



DICKENS'S (Charles) Works. Household Edition. Illustrated. 8vo. 



Oliver Twist Paper $ 50 

Cloth 1 00 

Our Mutual Friend... Paper 1 00 
Cloth 1 50 

Pictures from Italy, Sketch- 
es by Boz, Am. Notes. Pa. 1 00 
Cloth 1 50 



Pickwick Papers Paper $1 00 

Cloth 1 50 

The Old Curiosity Shop 1o 

Cloth 1 25 
Uncommercial Traveller, Hard 
Times, Edwin Drood.. .Paper 1 00 
> Cloth 1 50 

Pickwick Papers 4to, Paper 20 

The Mudfog Papers, &c 4to, Paper 10 

Mystery of Edwin Drood. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 25 

Hard Times 8vo, Paper 25 

Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy Svo, Paper 10 

DE MILLE'S A Castle in Spain. Ill'd. Svo, Cloth, $1 00 ; 8vo, Paper 50 

Cord and Creese. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 60 

The American Baron. Illustrated 8 vo. Paper 50 

The Cryptogram. Illustrated.... 8vo, Paper 75 

The Dodge Club. Illustrated... .8 vo, Paper, 60 cents ; 8vo, Cloth 1 10 
The Living Link. Illustrated.... 8 vo, Paper, 60 cents ; 8vo, Cloth 1 10 

DISRAELI'S (Earl of Beaconsfield) Endymion 4to, Paper 15 

TheYoungDuke 12mo, Cloth, $1 50; 4to, Paper 15 

ELIOT'S (George) Novels. Library Edition. Ill'd. 12mo, Cloth, per vol. 1 25 

Popular Edition. Illustrated 1 2mo, Cloth, per vol. 75 

Adam Bede. — Daniel Deronda, 2 vols. — Felix Holt, the Radical. — 
Middlemarch, 2 vols. — Romola. — Scenes of Clerical Life, and 
Silas Marner. — The Mill on the Floss. 

Amos Barton 3 2mo, Paper 20 

Brother Jacob.— The Lifted Yeil 32mo, Paper 20 

Daniel Deronda 8vo, Paper 50 

Felix Holt, the Radical 8vo, Paper 50 

^ Janet's Repentance , 82mo,Paper 20 

Middlemarch 8vo, Paper 75 

Mr. Gilfil's Love Story.". 32mo, Paper 20 

Romola. Illustrated 8 vo. Paper 50 

Silas Marner 1 2mo, Paper 20 

Scenes of Clerical Life 8vo, Paper 50 

The Mill on the Floss 8vo, Paper 50 

GASKELL'S (Mrs.) A Dark Night's Work 8vo, Paper 25 

Cousin Phillis 8vo, Paper 20 

Cranford ..16mo, Cloth 1 25 

Mary Barton Svo, Paper, 40 cents ; 4to, Paper 20 

Moorland Cottage 18mo, Cloth 75 

My Lady Ludlow Svo, Paper 20 

North and South Svo, Paper 40 

Right at Last, &c 12mo, Cloth 1 50 

Sylvia's Lovers Svo, Paper 40 

Wives and Daughters. Illustrated Svo, Paper 60 

HARRISON'S (Mrs.) Helen Troy 16mo, Cloth 1 00 

Golden Rod 32mo, Paper 25 

HAY'S (M. C.) A Dark Inheritance 32mo, Paper 15 

A Shadow on the Threshold 32mo, Paper 20 



Harper & Brothers' Popular Novels. 



PEICE 



HAY (M. C.) Among the Euins, and Other Stories 4to, Paper $ 15 

At the Seaside, and Other Stories 4to, Paper 15 

Back to the Old Home 32mo, Paper 20 

Bid Me Discourse 4to, Paper 10 

Dorothy's Venture 4to, Paper 15 

For Her Dear Sake 4to, Paper 15 

Hidden Perils 8vo, Paper 25 

Into the Shade, and Other Stories 4to, Paper 15 

Lady Carmichael's Will 32mo, Paper 15 

Missing , 32mo, Paper 20 

My First Offer, and Other Stories 4to, Paper 15 

Nora's Love Test 8vo, Paper 25 

Old Myddelton's Money 8vo, Paper 25 

Eeaping the Whirlwind 32mo, Paper 20 

The Arundel Motto 8vo, Paper 25 

The Sorrow of a Secret 32mo, Paper 15 

The Squire's Legacy 8vo, Paper 25 

Under Life's Key, and Other Stories 4to, Paper 15 

Victor and Vanquished 8vo, Paper 25 

HUGO'S (Victor) Ninety-Three. lU'd. 12mo, Cloth, $1 75 ; 8vo, Paper 25 

The Toilers of the Sea. Ill'd 8vo, Cloth, 150; 8vo, Paper 50 

JAMES'S (Henry, Jun.) Daisy Miller 32mo, Paper 20 

An International Episode 32mo, Paper 20 

Diary of a Man of Fifty, and A Bundle of Letters 32mo, Paper 25 

The four above-mentioned works in one volume 4to, Paper 25 

Washington Square. Illustrated 16mo, Cloth 1 25 

JOHNSTON'S (R. M.) Dukesborough Tales. Illustrated 4to, Paper 25 

Old Mark Langston 16mo, Cloth 1 00 

LAWRENCE'S (G. A.) Anteros 8 vo. Paper 40 

Brakespeare 8 vo, Paper 40 

Breaking a Butterfly 8vo, Paper 35 

Guy Livingstone 12mo, Cloth, $1 50; 4to, Paper 10 

Hagarene 8vo, Paper 35 

Maurice Bering 8vo, Paper 25 

Sans Merci 8vo, Paper 35 

Sword and Gown 8vo, Paper 20 

LEVER'S (Charles) A Day's Ride 8vo, Paper 40 

Harrington 8vo, Paper 40 

Gerald Fitzgerald 8vo, Paper 40 

Lord Kilgobbin Illustrated 8vo, Paper 50 

Luttrell of Arran 8 vo, Paper 60 

Maurice Tiernay 8 vo, Paper 50 

One of Them 8vo, Paper 50 

Roland Cashel. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 75 

Sir Brook Fosbrooke 8vo, Paper 50 

Sir Jasper Carew » 8vo, Paper 50 

That Boy of Norcott's. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 25 

The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly 8vo, Paper 50 

The Daltons 8vo, Paper 75 

The Dodd Family Abroad 8 vo. Paper 60 

The Fortunes of Glencore 8vo, Paper 50 



Harper d Brothers'^ Popular Novels. 



TRIOB 

LEVER'S (Charles) The Martins of Cro' Martin 8vo, Paper $• 60 

Tony Butler 8vo, Paper 60 

McCarthy's (Justin) Comet of a Season 4to, Paper 20 

Donna Quixote 4to, Paper 15 

Maid of Athens 4to, Paper 20 

My Enemy's Daughter. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 50 

The Commander's Statue ' 32mo, Paper 15 

The Waterdale Neighbors 8vo, Paper 35 

MACDONALD'S (George) Alec Forbes 8vo, Paper 50 

Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood 12rao, Cloth 1 25 

Donal Grant 4to, Paper 20 

Guild Court 8vo, Paper 40 

Warlock o' Glenwarlock 4to, Paper 20 

Weighed and Wanting 4to, Paper 20 

MULOCK'S (Miss) A Brave Lady. lU'd. 12mo, CI, 90 cents. ; 8 vo, Paper 60 

A French Country Family. Translated. Illustrated.... 12mo, Cloth 1 50 

Agatha's Husband. Ill'd 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents ; 8vo, Paper 35 

A Hero, &c 12mo, Cloth 90 

A Life for a Life 1 2mo, Cloth, 90 cents ; 8 vo, Paper 40 

A Noble Life 12mo, Cloth 90 

Avillion, and Other Tales 8vo, Paper 60 

Christian's Mistake 12mo, Cloth 90 

Hannah. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents ; 8vo, Paper 35 

Head of the Family. Ill'd 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents ; 8vo, Paper 50 

His Little Mother 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents; 4to, Paper 10 

John Halifax, Gentleman. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 50 

12mo, Cloth, 90 cents; 4to, Paper 15 

Mistress and Maid 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents; 8vo, Paper 30 

Motherless. Translated. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth 1 50 

My Mother and I. Illustrated.. 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents; 8vo, Paper 40 

Nothing New 8vo, Paper 30 

Ogilvies. Illustrated 12 mo. Cloth, 90 cents; 8 vo. Paper 35 

Olive. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents ; 8 vo. Paper 35 

The Laurel Bush. Ill'd 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents ; 8vo, Paper 25 

The Woman's Kingdom. Ill'd. 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents ; 8vo, Paper 60 

Two Marriages 12mo, Cloth 90 

Unkind Word, and Other Stories 12mo, Cloth 90 

Young Mrs. Jardine 12mo, Cloth, $1 25; 4to, Paper 10 

MURRAY'S (D. C.) A Life's Atonement 4to, Paper 20 

A Model Father 4to, Paper 10 

By the Gate of the Sea 4to, Paper, 15 cents ; 12 mo, Paper 15 

Hearts 4to, Paper 20 

The Way of the World 4to, Paper 20 

Val Strange 4to, Paper 20 

NORRIS'S (W. E.) Heaps of Money 8vo, Paper 15 

Mademoiselle de Mersac 4to, Paper 20 

No New Thing 4to, Paper 25 

Thirlby Hall. Illustrated 4to, Paper 25 

OLIPHANT'S (Mrs.) Agnes 8vo, Paper 50 

A Son of the Soil 8vo, Paper 50 

Athelings 8vo, Paper 50 



Harper c& Brothers' Popular Novels, 



PEIOE 

OLIPHANT'S (Mrs.) Brownlows 8vo, Paper $ 50 

Carita. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 50 

Chronicles of Carlingford 8vo, Paper 60 

Days of My Life 12ino, Cloth 1 50 

For Love and Life Svo, Paper 50 

Harry Joscelyn 4to, Paper 20 

He That Will Not when He May 4to, Paper 20 

Hester 4to, Paper 20 

Innocent. Illustrated Svo, Paper 50 

It was a Lover and His Lass 4to, Paper 20 

John: a Love Story Svo, Paper 25 

Katie Stewart.. Svo, Paper 20 

Lady Jane 4to, Paper 10 

Lucy Crofton 12mo, Cloth 1 50 

Madonna Mary Svo, Paper 50 

Miss Marjoribanks Svo, Paper 50 

Mrs. Arthur Svo, Paper 40 

Onibra Svo, Paper 50 

Phoebe, Junior Svo, Paper 35 

Sir Tom 4to, Paper 20 

Squire Arden Svo, Paper 50 

The Curate in Charge Svo, Paper 20 

T.he Fugitives 4to, Paper 10 

The Greatest Heiress in England 4to, Paper 10 

The House on the Moor 12mo, Cloth 1 50 

The Ladies Lindores 16mo, Cloth, f 1 00; 4to, Paper 20 

The Laird of Norlaw 12mo, Cloth 1 50 

The Last of the Mortimers 12mo, Cloth 1 50 

The Minister's Wife Svo, Paper 50 

The Perpetual Curate Svo, Paper 50 

The Primrose Path Svo, Paper 50 

The Quiet Heart Svo, Paper 20 

The Story of Valentine and his Brother Svo, Paper 50 

The Wizard's Son 4to, Paper 25 

Within the Precincts 4to, Paper 15 

Young Musgrave Svo, Paper 40 

PAYN'S (James) A Beggar on Horseback Svo, Paper 35 

A Confidential Agent 4to, Paper 15 

A Grape from a Thorn 4to, Paper 20 

A Woman's Vengeance Svo, Paper 35 

At Her Mercy Svo, Paper 30 

Bred in the Bone Svo, Paper 40 

By Proxy Svo, Paper 35 

Carlyon's Year Svo, Paper 25 

Cecil's Tryst Svo, Paper 30 

For Cash Only 4to, Paper 20 

Found Dead Svo, Paper 25 

From Exile c 4to, Paper 15 

Gwendoline's Harvest Svo, Paper 25 

Halves Svo, Paper 30 

High Spirits 4to, Paper 15 



Harper <£ Brothers' Popular Novels. 



PEIOB 

FAYN'S (James) Kit. Illustrated 4to, Paper $ 20 

Less Black than We're Painted ". 8vo, Paper 35 

Murphy's Master 8vo, Paper 20 

One of the Family 8vo, Paper 25 

The Best of Husbands Svo, Paper 25 

The Canon's Ward. Illustrated 4to, Paper 25 

Thicker than Water 1 6mo, Cloth , $ 1 00 ; 4to, Paper 20 

Under One Roof 4to, Paper 15 

Walter's Word Svo, Paper 50 

What He Cost Her 8vo, Paper 40 

Won— Not Wooed 8vo, Paper 80 

READE'S Novels : Household Edition. lU'd 12mo, Cloth, per vol. 1 00 



A Perilous Secret. 

A Simpleton and the Wandering 

Heir. 
A Terrible Temptation. 
A Woman-Hater. 
Foul Play. 
Good Stories. 
Griffith Gaunt. 



Hard Cash. 

It is Never Too Late to Mend. 

Love me Little, Love me Long. 

Peg Woffington, Christie John- 
stone, &c. 

Put Yourself in His Place. 

The Cloister and the Hearth. 

White Lies. 

A Hero and a Martyr Svo, Paper 15 

A Simpleton Svo, Paper 80 

A Terrible Temptation. Illustrated Svo, Paper ^ 25 

A Woman-Hater. lU'd Svo, Paper, 80 cents ; 12mo, Paper 20 

Foul Play Svo, Paper 80 

Good Stories of Man and Other Animals. lU'd 4to, Paper 20 

Griffith Gaunt. Illustrated Svo, Paper 80 

Hard Cash. Illustrated Svo, Paper 85 

It is Never Too Late to Mend Svo, Paper 85 

Jack of all Trades 16mo, Paper 15 

Love Me Little, Love Me Long Svo, Paper 80 

Multum in Parvo. Illustrated 4to, Paper 15 

Peg Woffington, &c Svo, Paper 35 

Put Yourself in His Place. Illustrated Svo, Paper 35 

The Cloister and the Hearth Svo, Paper 85 

The Coming Man 82mo, Paper 20 

The Jilt 32mo, Paper 20 

The Picture 16mo, Paper 15 

The Wandering Heir. Illustrated Svo, Paper 20 

White Lies Svo, Paper 30 

RICE & BESANT'S All Sorts and Conditions of Men 4to, Paper 20 

By Celia's Arbor. Illustrated Svo, Paper 50 

Shepherds All and Maidens Fair 32mo, Paper 25 

" So they were Married !" Illustrated 4to, Paper 20 

Sweet Nelly, My Heart's Delight 4to, Paper 10 

The Captains' Room ....4to, Paper 10 

The Chaplain of the Fleet 4to, Paper 20 

The Golden Butterfly Svo, Paper 40 

'Twas in Trafalgar's Bay ...82mo, Paper 20 

When the Ship Comes Home » 82mo, Paper 25 

ROBINSON'S (F. W.) A Bridge of Glass Svo, Paper 30 



Harper <& Brothers' Popular Novels, 



ROBIXSON'S (F. W.) A Girl's Romance, and Other Stories... 8 vo, Paper $ 80 

As Long as She Lived 8vo, Paper 50 

Carry's Confession Svo, Paper 50 

Cliristie's Faith 12mo, Cloth 1 75 

Coward Conscience '. 4to, Paper 15 

For Her Sake. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 60 

Her Face was Her Fortune , 8vo, Paper 40 

Little Kate Kirby. Hlustrated 8vo, Paper 50 

Mattie: a Stray 8vo, Paper 40 

No Man's Friend Svo, Paper 50 

Othello the Second.... , 32mo, Paper 20 

Poor Humanity 8vo, Paper 50 

Poor Zeph! 32mo, Paper 20 

Romance on Four Wheels Svo, Paper 15 

Second-Cousin Sarah. Hlustrated Svo, Paper 50 

Stern Necessity Svo, Paper 40 

The Barmaid at Battleton 32mo, Paper 15 

The Black Speck 4to, Paper 10 

The Hands of Justice 4to, Paper 20 

The Man She Cared For 4to, Paper 20 

The Romance of a Back Street 32mo, Paper 15 

True to Herself Svo, Paper 50 

RUSSELL'S (W. Clark) Auld Lang Syne 4to, Paper 10 

A Sailor's Sweetheart 4to, Paper 15 

A Sea Queen 16mo, Cloth, $1 00; 4to, Paper 20 

An Ocean Free Lance 4to, Paper 20 

Jack's Courtship 4to, Paper 25 

John Holdsworth, Chief Mate Svo, Paper 20 

Little Loo 4to, Paper 20 

My Watch Below 4to, Paper 20 

Round the Galley Fire 4to, Paper 15 

The " Lady Maud :" Schooner Yacht. Illustrated 4to, Paper 20 

Wreck of the "Grosvenor" Svo, Paper, 30 cents; 4to, Paper 15 

SHERWOOD'S (Mrs. John) A Transplanted Rose 12mo, Cloth 1 00 

TABOR'S (Eliza) Eglantine Svo, Paper 40 

Hope Meredith Svo, Paper 35 

Jeanie's Quiet Life Svo, Paper 30 

Little Miss Primrose 4to, Paper 15 

Meta's Faith Svo, Paper 35 

St. Olave's Svo, Paper 40 

The Blue Ribbon Svo, Paper 40 

The Last of Her Line 4to, Paper 15 

The Senior Songman 4to, Paper 20 

THACKERAY'S (Miss) Bluebeard's Keys Svo, Paper 35 

Da Capo 32mo, Paper 2u 

Miscellaneous Works .Svo, Paper 90 

Miss Angel. Illustrated Svo, Paper 50 

Miss Williamson's Divagations 4to, Paper 15 

Old Kensington. Illustrated Svo, Paper 60 

Tillage on the Cliff. Illustrated Svo, Paper 25 

THACKERAY'S (W. M.) Denis Duval. Illustrated Svo, Paper 25 

Henry Esmond, and Lovel the Widower. 12 IlFs Svo, Paper 60 



10 Harper & Brothers' Popular Novels. 

PBIOB 

THACKERAY'S(W. M.) Henry Esmond.. 8vo, Pa., 50 cents; 4to, Paper $ 15 

Lovel the Widower 8vo, Paper 20 

Pendennis. 179 Illustrations 8vo, Paper 75 

The Adventures of Philip. 64 Illustrations 8 vo, Paper 60 

The Great Hoggarty Diamond... 8vo, Paper 20 

The Newcomes. 162 Illustrations 8vo, Paper 90 

The Virginians. 1 50 Illustrations 8vo, Paper 90 

Vanity Fair. 32 Illustrations 8vo, Paper 80 

THACKERAY'S Works. Illustrated.. 12mo, Cloth, per vol. 1 25 

Novels: Vanity Fair. — Pendennis. — The Newcomes. — The Virgin- 
ians. — Philip. — Esmond, and Lovel the Widower. 6 vols. Mis- 
cellaneous: Barry Lyndon, Hoggarty Diamond, &c. — Paris and 
Irish Sketch-Books, &c. — Book of Snobs, Sketches, &c. — Four 
Georges, English Humorists, Roundabout Papers, &c. — Catharine, 
&c. 5 vols. 

TOWNSEND'S (G. A.) The Entailed Hat 16mo, Cloth 1 50 

TROLLOPE'S (Anthony) An Eye for an Eye 4to, Paper 10 

An Old Man's Love 4to, Paper 15 

Ayala's Angel 4to, Paper 20 

Brown, Jones, and Robinson 8vo, Paper 35 

Can You Forgive Her? Illustrated 8vo, Paper 80 

Castle Richmond 12mo, Cloth 1 50 

Cousin Henry 4to, Paper 10 

Doctor Thorne 12mo, Cloth 1 50 

Doctor Wortle's School 4to, Paper 15 

Framley Parsonage 4to, Paper 1 5 

Harry Heathcote of Gangoil. Illustrated 8 vo. Paper 20 

He Knew He was Right. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 80 

Is He Popenjoy? 4to, Paper 20 

John Caldigate 4to, Paper 1 5 

Kept in the Dark 4to, Paper 15 

Lady Anna 8vo, Paper 30 

Marion Fay. Illustrated 4to, Paper 20 

Miss Mackenzie 8vo, Paper 35 

Mr. Scarborough's Family 4to, Paper 20 

Orley Farm. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 80 

Phineas Finn. Illustrated 8 vo. Paper 75 

Phineas Redux. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 75 

Rachel Ray 8vo, Paper 35 

Ralph the Heir. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 75 

Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 35 

The American Senator 8vo, Paper 50 

The Belton Estate 8vo, Paper 35 

The Bertrams 4to, Paper 15 

The Claverings. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 50 

The Duke's Children 4to, Paper 20 

The Eustace Diamonds. Illustrated 8 vo, Paper 80 

The Fixed Period 4to, Paper 15 

The Golden Lion of Granpere. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 40 

The Lady of Launay 32mo, Paper 20 

The Last Chronicle of Barset. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 90 



mssm 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 526 608 7 



mm 







^Ary: 




